Nucleon inelastic scattering cross sections on 16O and 28Si

This paper reports cross-section measurements of the (n, n') and (p, p') reactions on O-16 and Si-28 at Geel Electron Linear Accelerator and at the 9-MV Tandem Accelerator of Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, respectively. The main purpose was to measure the neutron- and proton-induced inelastic gamma-production cross sections for all observed transitions in O-16 and Si-28 , followed by the calculation of the corresponding total inelastic cross section. The results are compared with theoretical calculations performed using the TALYS 1.9 code, evaluated nuclear data, and previously reported experimental data. The broader goal of this work is to study whether and to what extent the neutron-induced inelastic cross sections of these nuclei can be inferred from those obtained using suitable charged particle reactions. We show that, by making use of the formal similarities between the neutron- and the proton-target optical model potentials and isospin symmetry in mirror nuclei, one can develop a procedure that combines experimental proton-induced inelastic cross sections with theoretical calculations to infer neutron inelastic cross sections. For O-16 and Si-28 , the precision associated with this procedure is around 10-20% for most of the incident energy range.