The performance of the solid deuterium ultra-cold neutron source at the pulsed reactor TRIGA Mainz with a maximum peak energy of 10 MJ is described. The solid deuterium converter with a volume of V=160 cm3 (8 mol), which is exposed to a thermal neutron fluence of 4.5x10^13 n/cm2, delivers up to 550 000 UCN per pulse outside of the biological shield at the experimental area. UCN densities of ~ 10/cm3 are obtained in stainless steel bottles of V ~ 10 L resulting in a storage efficiency of ~20%. The measured UCN yields compare well with the predictions from a Monte Carlo simulation developed to model the source and to optimize its performance for the upcoming upgrade of the TRIGA Mainz into a user facility for UCN physics.
@article{arxiv.1308.4610,
title = {V2:Performance of the solid deuterium ultra-cold neutron source at the pulsed reactor TRIGA Mainz},
author = {J. Karch and Yu. Sobolev and M. Beck and K. Eberhardt and G. Hampel and W. Heil and R. Kieser and T. Reich and N. Trautmann and M. Ziegner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.4610},
year = {2015}
}