Applications ranging from nuclear safeguards to dark matter detection require accurate predictions of neutron yields and energy spectra produced by (α,n) reactions. Legacy tools like SOURCES-4C remain widely used despite significant limitations, including outdated nuclear data, missing target nuclides, and restricted accessibility. Here, we present ALPHANSO, an open-source Python package for calculating (α,n) neutron source terms. ALPHANSO incorporates modern nuclear data libraries and formats covering all naturally occurring target nuclides and provides a transparent, modular framework for updating or extending the data as new evaluations are released. Comparison with an updated version of SOURCES-4A, NeuCBOT, and experimental measurements across a range of elements and materials shows that ALPHANSO reproduces neutron yields and spectra in good agreement with experimental data and state-of-the-art (α,n) calculations. These results demonstrate that ALPHANSO is a reliable, accessible, and modern alternative to legacy (α,n) source term codes such as SOURCES-4C. Its open-source design and modular data handling make it readily extensible to future evaluated nuclear data and low-background applications.
@article{arxiv.2603.17719,
title = {ALPHANSO: Open-Source Modeling of ($\alpha$,n) Neutron Source Terms},
author = {Divit Rawal and Anthony J. Nelson and William Zywiec and Daniel Siefman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.17719},
year = {2026}
}