Effect of target density uncertainties on extracted experimental cross sections for the natTi(α, x)51Cr,46Sc reactions

Abstract

The production optimization of medical radioisotopes for various applications requires careful analysis of all production parameters. The importance of such radioisotopes in nuclear medicine cannot be overemphasized. During cross section calculations, experimentalist sometimes find more than one reported literature value of a certain parameter, each leading to a different effect on the overall cross sections. In the present work, we considered the effect of slight variations of density values of titanium reported in the literature on the experimental cross sections. Several reported density values (4.50, 4.51 and 4.54 g/cm3) were found in the literature, but only the lowest and highest values (4.50 and 4.54 g/cm3) were considered in this study. The said densities were used to calculate the cross sections of Ti(a, x)51Cr,46Sc radioisotopes. The corresponding trends of the excitation functions of 51Cr and 46Sc were analyzed for the selected density values. The calculated cross sections from the different density values have been analyzed and compared graphically to show the level of variations, as well as comparison with theoretical TALYS code calculated cross sections. About 1 percent variation of the cross sections have been observed. Following the observed slight variation in cross sections effect of the various density values, we recommend that IAEA could update its nuclear data service database to include recommended density values for all metals using reliable sources.