Comparison of Expanded Preequilibrium CEM Model with CEM03.03 and Experimental Data, FY2013

Abstract

Emission of light fragments (LF) from nuclear reactions is an open question. Different reaction mechanisms contribute to their production; the relative roles of each, and how they change with incident energy, mass number of the target, and the type and emission energy of the fragments is not completely understood. None of the available models are able to accurately predict emission of LF from arbitrary reactions. However, the ability to describe production of LF (especially at energies $\gtrsim 30$ MeV) from many reactions is important for different applications, such as cosmic-ray-induced Single Event Upsets (SEUs), radiation protection, and cancer therapy with proton and heavy-ion beams, to name just a few. The Cascade-Exciton Model (CEM) version 03.03 and the Los Alamos version of the Quark-Gluon String Model (LAQGSM) version 03.03 event generators in Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code version 6 (MCNP6) describe quite well the spectra of fragments with sizes up to $^{4}$He across a broad range of target masses and incident energies (up to $\sim 5$ GeV for CEM and up to $\sim 1$ TeV/A for LAQGSM). However, they do not predict the high-energy tails of LF spectra heavier than $^4$He well. Most LF with energies above several tens of MeV are emitted during the precompound stage of a reaction. The current versions of the CEM and LAQGSM event generators do not account for precompound emission of LF larger than $^{4}$He. The aim of our work is to extend the precompound model in them to include such processes, leading to an increase of predictive power of LF-production in MCNP6. Extending our models to include emission of fragments heavier than $^4$He at the precompound stage has already provided preliminary results that have much better agreement with experimental data.