Experimental and numerical characterization of the neutron field produced in the n@BTF Frascati photo-neutron source

A photo-neutron irradiation facility is going to be established at the Frascati National Laboratories of INFN on the base of the successful results of the n@BTF experiment. The photoneutron source is obtained by an electron or positron pulsed beam, tunable in energy, current and in time structure, impinging on an optimized tungsten target located in a polyethylene-lead shielding assembly. The resulting neutron field, through selectable collimated apertures at different angles, is released into a 100 m2 irradiation room. The neutron beam, characterized by an evaporation spectrum peaked at about 1 MeV, can be used in nuclear physics, calibration of neutron detectors, material science and studies of "single event effects". The intensity of the neutron beam obtainable with 510MeV electrons and its fluence energy distribution at a point of reference in the irradiation room were predicted by Monte Carlo simulations and experimentally determined with a Bonner Sphere Spectrometer (BSS). Due to the large photon contribution and the pulsed time structure of the beam, passive photon-insensitive thermal neutron detectors were used as sensitive element of the BSS. For this purpose, a set of Dy activation foils was used. This paper presents the numerical simulations, the measurements, and compares their results in terms of both neutron spectrum and total neutron fluence.