Open Access

Pablo Torres-Sánchez, Javier Praena, José Ignacio Porras Sánchez, Marta Sabaté-Gilarte, Claudia Lederer-Woods, Oliver Aberle, Victor Alcayne, Simone Amaducci, Józef Andrzejewski, Laurent Audouin, Vicente Bécares, Victor Babiano Suarez, Michael Bacak, Massimo Barbagallo, František Bečvář, Giorgio Bellia, Eric Berthoumieux, Jonathan Billowes, Damir Bosnar, Adam Brown, Maurizio Busso, Manuel Caamaño, Luis Caballero Ontanaya, Francisco Calviño Tavares, Marco Calviani, Daniel Cano-Ott, Adrià Casanovas Hoste, Francesco Cerutti, Yonghao Chen, Enrico Chiaveri, Nicola Colonna, Guillem Pere Cortés Rossell, Miguel Antonio Cortés-Giraldo, Luigi Cosentino, Sergio Cristallo, Lucia Anna Damone, Maria Diakaki, Mirco Dietz, César Domingo-Pardo, Rugard Dressler, Emmeric Dupont, Ignacio Durán, Zinovia Eleme, Beatriz Fernández Domínguez, Alfredo Ferrari, Francisco Javier Ferrer, Paolo Finocchiaro, Valter Furman, Kathrin Göbel, Ruchi Garg, Aleksandra Gawlik-Ramięga, Benoit Geslot, Simone Gilardoni, Tudor Glodariu, Isabel Maria Ferro Gonçalves, Enrique Miguel González Romero, Carlos Guerrero Sánchez, Frank Gunsing, Hideo Harada, Stephan Heinitz, Jan Heyse, David Jenkins, Erwin Jericha, Franz Käppeler, Yacine Kadi, Atsushi Kimura, Nikolay Kivel, Michael Kokkoris, Yuri N. Kopatch, Milan Krtička, Cem Deniz Kurtulgil, Ion Ladarescu, Helmut Leeb, Jorge Lerendegui-Marco, Sergio Lo Meo, Sarah Jane Lonsdale, Daniela Macina, Alice Manna, Trinitario Martínez, Alessandro Masi, Cristian Massimi, Pierfrancesco Mastinu, Mario Mastromarco, Francesca Matteucci, Emilio Andrea Maugeri, Annamaria Mazzone, Emilio Mendoza Cembranos, Alberto Mengoni, Veatriki Michalopoulou, Paolo Maria Milazzo, Federica Mingrone, Agatino Musumarra, Alexandru Negret, Ralf Nolte, Francisco Ogállar Ruiz, Andreea Oprea, Nikolas Patronis, Andreas Pavlik, Jarosław Perkowski, Luciano Piersanti, José Manuel Quesada Molina, Désirée Radeck, Diego Ramos Doval, Thomas Rauscher, René Reifarth, Dimitri Rochman, Carlo Rubbia, Alok Saxena, Peter Schillebeeckx, Dorothea Schumann, Alastair Gavin Smith, Nikolay V. Sosnin, Athanasios Stamatopoulos, Giuseppe Tagliente, Jose Luis Taı́n Enríquez, Zeynep Talip, Ariel Tarifeño-Saldivia, Laurent Tassan-Got, Andrea Tsinganis, Jiri Ulrich, Sebastian Urlaß, Stanislav Valenta, Gianni Vannini, Vincenzo Variale, Pedro Vaz, Alberto Ventura, Vasilis Vlachoudis, Rosa Vlastou, Anton Wallner, Philip John Woods, Tobias Wright, Petar Žugec

• The 14N(n,p)14C reaction is of interest in neutron capture therapy, where nitrogen-related dose is the main component due to low-energy neutrons, and in astrophysics, where 14N acts as a neutron poison in the s-process. Several discrepancies remain between the existing data obtained in partial energy ranges: thermal energy, keV region and resonance region. Purpose: Measuring the 14N(n,p)14C cross section from thermal to the resonance region in a single measurement for the first time, including characterization of the first resonances, and providing calculations of Maxwellian averaged cross sections (MACS). Method: Time-of-flight technique. Experimental Area 2 (EAR-2) of the neutron time-of-flight (n_TOF) facility at CERN. 10B(n,α)7Li and 235U(n,f) reactions as references. Two detection systems running simultaneously, one on-beam and another off-beam. Description of the resonances with the R-matrix code sammy. Results: The cross section has been measured from sub-thermal energy to 800 keV resolving the two first resonances (at 492.7 and 644 keV). A thermal cross-section (1.809±0.045 b) lower than the two most recent measurements by slightly more than one standard deviation, but in line with the ENDF/B-VIII.0 and JEFF-3.3 evaluations has been obtained. A 1/v energy dependence of the cross section has been confirmed up to tens of keV neutron energy. The low energy tail of the first resonance at 492.7 keV is lower than suggested by evaluated values, while the overall resonance strength agrees with evaluations. Conclusions: Our measurement has allowed to determine the 14N(n,p) cross-section over a wide energy range for the first time. We have obtained cross-sections with high accuracy (2.5 %) from sub-thermal energy to 800 keV and used these data to calculate the MACS for kT = 5 to kT = 100 keV.