Systematic study of theoretical estimation of nuclear reaction cross section of proton-induced reactions on Neodymium target upto 65 MeV using TALYS-1.96 code

Abstract A systematic study was conducted on the theoretical estimation of the nuclear cross sections of charged particle induced reactions on rare earth nuclei. The production cross sections of the 150,149,148,146,144,143,141 Pm and 149,147 Nd nuclei were calculated theoretically via proton induced reactions on neodymium using TALYS (version 1.96) code in the default mode, with different combinations of nuclear models as well as adjusted nuclear model parameters from the reaction threshold up to a proton energy of 65 MeV. The theoretically computed results were compared with the experimental results taken from the EXFOR database and literature reported by various research groups. Moreover, the effects of various level density models, preequilibrium models, optical model potentials, and gamma strength functions on the cross section calculation were considered. This theoretical analysis will help elucidate the theory of nuclear reaction models and improve the evaluated nuclear data libraries.