A new method of creating high intensity neutron source

Abstract

We propose a new scheme of producing an intense neutron beam whose yields may exceed those of the existing facilities by a few to several orders of magnitude in the sub-eV region. This scheme employs a MeV gamma beam extracted from circulating quantum ions, which has been recently proposed. The gamma beam is directed to a deuteron target and the photo-disintegration process generates a neutron beam. The calculated neutron energy spectrum is nearly flat down to the neV range, and thus there exists a possibility to utilize a good quality of neutrons especially in sub-eV energy region without using a moderator.