A white neutron source from 1 to 400 MeV

A new white neutron source, which can produce intense neutron fluxes with energies from less than 1 MeV to greater than 400 MeV, is being constructed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The neutrons are produced in a spallation reaction using the 800 MeV pulsed proton beam from the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (LAMPF) accelerator. A gamma-ray detection system has been instrumented at 150 with respect to the incident proton beam with a flight path of 18 m. Excitation functions and angular distributions of the 4.44 and 15.1 MeV gamma rays produced following the 12C(n, n' γ) reaction have been measured in a preliminary run. (author)