| Popis: |
Interrogation of special nuclear materials can benefit from mobile sources providing significant fluxes of neutrons (108/s at 2.5 MeV, 1010/s at 14.1 MeV) and of photons (>1012/s at 1-3 MeV). We propose a source that satisfies these requirements simultaneously plus also provides, via the reaction 11B(d,n)12C(γ15.1), a significant flux of 15-MeV photons, which are highly penetrating and optimal for inducing photo-fission in actinides. The source is based on a compact (< 5 m) deuteron RF accelerator that delivers an average current of a few mA of deuterons at 3-4 MeV to a boron target. The accelerator consists of a short RFQ followed by efficient inter-digital H-mode structures with permanent-magnet-quadrupole beam focusing [Kurennoy et al. (2012)], which suit perfectly for deuteron acceleration at low energies. Our estimates, based on recent measurements [Taddeucci et al. (2007)], indicate that the required fluxes of both neutrons and photons can be achieved at ∼1mA of 4-MeV deuterons. The goal of the proposed study is to confirm feasibility of the approach and develop requirements for future full- system implementation. |
