Polarization of neutrons from (d, n) reactions on 11B, 14N and 15N

Abstract The angular dependence of the differential cross section and polarization for the reactions 11 B(d, n) 12 C to the ground state and first-excited state of 12 C, and 14 N(d, n 0 ) 15 O g.s. have been measured at E d = 5.5 MeV from 10° to 160°; for 14 N(d, n 0 ) 15 O, the energy dependence of the polarization at a lab angle of 25° has been measured between 4.2 and 6.0 MeV. For angles where the differential cross section is small but the polarization is large, a possibility to estimate the compound nucleus contribution is presented. The polarization and differential cross section of the reactions 11 B, 14 N, 15 N(d, n) are analysed with DWBA theory. For the nitrogen isotopes a fair agreement is achieved. No such agreement was possible for the reaction 11 B(d, n); the transition to the first-excited state seems to be a mixture of a 1 p 1 2 and 1 p 3 2 proton transfer.