Photoneutron Cross Sections in 14N

Abstract

Photoneutron distributions from 14N have been obtained by time-of-flight methods, for bremsstrahlung end-point energies increasing in 2 MeV steps from 15.5 to 29.5 MeV. A large part of the neutron yield is associated with the sequential decay of 14N to 12C, through well-defined intermediate states of 13C, at 7.55, 8.86, and 11.80 MeV, which are unstable against neutron emission. The (γ,n0) cross section for neutron emission to the ground state of 13N is found to agree very closely with the corresponding (γ,p0) cross section, implying a high degree of isospin purity for the giant dipole resonance of 14N. It is observed that the decay of the giant resonance proceeds freely through those odd-parity excited states of the A = 13 nuclei which are single hole states formed by the removal of a p-shell nucleon from the parent 14N.The integrated cross section for all neutron-producing interactions is found to be 88 ± 5 MeV mb.