Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2015) 130: 153
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15153-x

Regular Article

Assessment of nuclear-reaction codes for proton-induced reactions on light nuclei below 250 MeV

¹ Centre de Saclay, IRFU/SPhN, CEA, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
² Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group NRG, PO Box 25, 1755 ZG, Petten, The Netherlands

^* e-mail: davide.mancusi@cea.fr

Received: 17 December 2014
Revised: 12 June 2015
Accepted: 5 July 2015
Published online: 30 July 2015

Abstract

We assess the suitability of nuclear-reaction codes for the generation of accurate cross-section libraries targeted at the simulation of the transport of high-energy protons (up to 250 MeV) in the human body, or in any material containing light nuclides. To this end we present an extensive study of elastic, reaction and fragmentation cross sections for proton-induced reactions on several nuclides. We compare TALYS evaluations against experimental data and, wherever applicable, against the predictions of the INCL/ABLA07 nuclear-reaction model. The TALYS evaluations have been cast in the form of a new cross-section library, which also includes evaluated proton-proton cross sections based on the NN-OnLine tool.