Neutrons from the D-D Reactions

Abstract

An investigation has been made of the neutron spectra resulting from D-D reactions for a range of incident deuteron energies of 4.75 to 7.33 Mev, using a pulsed-beam time-of-flight method. In addition to mono-energetic neutrons from the reaction $\mathrm{D}(d, n){\mathrm{He}}^3$, a continuum of neutrons is observed corresponding to $\mathrm{D}(d, np)\mathrm{D}$. The yield of the latter reaction has been measured at about 0.5-Mev intervals at zero degrees, and at an energy of 6.3 Mev an angular distribution has been obtained for both reactions. At 6.3-Mev deuteron energy and at zero degrees the yield of the continuum for neutron energies above 0.95 Mev is 17% of the yield of monoenergetic neutrons. The yield from both reactions is strongly forward in the laboratory reference frame, and for the breakup process increases rapidly with increase in energy above threshold.