Simulation of the neutron spectrum from the 7Li(p,n) reaction with a liquid-lithium target at Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility

Abstract The 7 Li( p,n ) 7 Be reaction has been used for the last 25 years to produce quasi-Maxwellian neutrons in order to measure Maxwellian-Averaged Cross-Sections in the relevant temperatures for stellar nucleosynthesis. A liquid-lithium target at the Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility is expected to allow us to perform such measurements at higher neutron intensities. Here we describe a Monte Carlo tool, SimLiT, developed to evaluate neutron spectra, intensities and angular distributions resulting from this reaction. We also demonstrate the feasibility to couple SimLiT with an advanced transport code, resulting in a powerful tool for planning and analysis of experiments using the 7 Li( p,n ) reaction as a neutron source.