Study of function response of a detector HPGe to photons of reaction 19F(p,αγ)16O

In the 19F(p,αγ)16O reaction, characteristic gamma-rays with energies: 6.1 MeV; 6.9 MeV and 7.1 keV can be observed. These photons can be used in many important applications such as Proton Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIGE), gamma radiography and calibration purposes. It has another advantage in calibration procedures, which is the observed photon flux is greater than other reactions studied, 27Al(p,αγ)28Si and 23Na(p,αγ)24Mg. In our laboratory, we are studying the efficiency and response function of HPGe detectors for high energy photons, and for this it is necessary a source with a level scheme with few gamma-ray transitions and known relative yields. The 19F(p,αγ)16O reaction satisfies the first condition but in the literature we found relative yields for thick targets or reaction cross section for thin targets. However, we use targets of intermediate thickness, therefore in this work we measure the relative gamma-ray yields for protons with energies between 1.36 MeV and 1.42 MeV. The experiments were performed at the 1.7 MV Pelletron tandem accelerator of the Laboratorio de Analise de Materiais por Feixes Ionicos (LAMFI) located at Instituto de Fisica da Universidade de Sao Paulo, using a reverse-electrode closed-end coaxial HPGe detector with 72.5 mm in diameter and 60.5 mm in length, at 0 deg. The proton irradiation current was 50 nA, and the target consisted of 250 μg/cm2 CaF2 evaporated on a 0.1 mm Ta backing. In this reaction the 20Ne resonant state fissions in flight, and the resulting 16O excited states have different half-lives; all observed peaks are deformed due to either Doppler broadening from 16O random velocity direction or Doppler shift from nuclei that leave the target toward the vacuum chamber. Moreover, the peak deformations vary with the proton energy. These deformations were modeled by a Monte Carlo simulation that follows the oxygen nuclei in its trajectory until photon emission, considering the changes in spatial distribution of the exact interaction point in the target with incident proton energy due to the large resonance width and proton energy loss, and 16O energy loss and multiple scattering until decay, in the different target layers. Using the detector response functions calculated by MCNP5 simulations, the relative intensities of the three gamma rays were obtained by a least square fit of the response functions, taking into account the Doppler broadening and shift for each gamma ray, to the data in the experimental pulse-height spectrum. (author)