Theoretical calculations of the reaction cross-sections for proton-induced reactions on natural copper using ALICE-IPPE code

A theoretical study of the nuclear-reaction cross sections for proton-induced reactions on 63Cu and 65Cu was performed in the proton energy range from threshold values up to 50 MeV. The produced nuclei were different isotopes of Zn, Cu, Ni, Co and Mn, some of which have important applications. The reaction cross-section calculations were performed using the ALICE-IPPE code, which depends on the pre-equilibrium compound nucleus model. This code is suitable for the studied energy and isotopic mass ranges. Approximately 14 excitation functions for the different reactions have been constructed from the calculated cross-section values. The excitation function curves for the proton reactions with natural copper targets have been constructed from those for enriched targets using the natural abundance of the copper isotopes. Comparisons between the calculated excitation functions with those previously experimentally measured are given whenever the experimental values were available. Some statistical parameters were introduced to control the quality of the fitting between both the experimental and the theoretical calculated cross-section values. - Highlights: ► We performed reaction cross section calculations using ALICE-IPPE code. ► We constructed 14 excitation functions for natCu(p,xn)Zn,Cu,Ni,Co,Mn reactions. ► The available experimental data were fitted to the performed ALICE-IPPE calculations. ► Statistical parameters were introduced to control the quality of the fitting. ► The code failed to fit the experimental data for reactions with large nucleon emissions.