Verification of excitation functions of the (γ, n) reactions

We measured the activities of ⁹⁹Mo that were generated by bombarding 15-50 MeV electron bremsstrahlung photons. The experiment was carried out at Research Center for Electron Photon Science (ELPH), Tohoku University. The generated activities in the irradiated ^natMo target were determined from the gamma-ray measurement using the High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector. In order to verify the excitation function of ¹⁰⁰Mo(γ, n)⁹⁹Mo reaction, the experimental setup was simulated with the Particle and Heavy-Ion Transport code System (PHITS) to determine the flux of bremsstrahlung photons. Then, the estimated activities were deduced from literature data of the ¹⁰⁰Mo(γ, n)⁹⁹Mo excitation function multiplied by the bremsstrahlung photon spectrum. The experimental result shows that the literature data of (γ, n) excitation function for ¹⁰⁰Mo can be used to estimate the activities generated by the bremsstrahlung photons. (author)