Abstract
THE danger of neutrons on the human body arises from two factors : the slowing down of fast neutrons and the absorption of neutrons. In the case of thermal neutrons, only absorption can take place, either in hydrogen to form a deuteron with emission of a 2.2-MeV. γ-ray, or by nitrogen-14 to form a carbon, with the emission of a 0.7-MeV. proton. In a very complete paper on the subject, Mitchell1 finds that the ionization produced in the human body can be attributed half to the γ-rays of the latter reaction and half to the protons. This note deals only with the γ-rays from the H(n,γ)D reaction.
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References
Mitchell, Brit. J. Rad. (Feb. 1947).
Fermi and Amaldi, Phys. Rev., 50, 899 (1936).
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CAPRON, P., FAES, M. & TAVERNIER, G. Tolerance Flux of Thermal Neutrons. Nature 163, 129 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163129a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163129a0
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