Deuteron-induced reactions on natural Zr from threshold to 50 MeV: production of ⁸⁶Y

Two stacks of thin Zr foils were irradiated with 30 and 50 MeV deuterons, respectively, using the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory $88$-Inch Cyclotron, to investigate this production pathway for the promising PET tracer ⁸⁶Y. Nineteen excitation functions for ⁿᵃᵗZr(d,x) reactions were measured over a beam energy range of $6.3$--$47.64$ MeV, where the independent cross sections for ⁿᵃᵗZr(d,x)⁸⁸Nb and ⁿatZr(d,x)86m, gY were measured for the first time. The well-characterized ⁿᵃᵗFe(d,x)⁵⁶Co, ⁿᵃᵗNi(d,x)⁵⁶Co, ⁿᵃᵗNi(d,x)⁵⁸Co, ⁿᵃᵗNi(d,x)⁶¹Cu, ⁿᵃᵗTi(d,x)⁴⁶Sc and ⁿᵃᵗTi(d,x)⁴⁸V monitor reactions were used to determine the deuteron beam current throughout the stacks. All cross sections were determined using High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector $γ$-ray spectroscopy. A variance minimization technique was employed to simultaneously constrain the deuteron beam currents with multiple monitor reactions, thus reducing systematic uncertainties. An additional $16$ channels are reported for reactions on the nickel, titanium, and iron monitor foils, leading to a total of $35$ excitation functions, with $7$ reaction channels reported for the first time in this work. The measured excitation functions are compared to calculations provided by the reaction modeling codes TALYS-2.0, ALICE-2020, CoH-3.5.3 and EMPIRE-3.2.3, as well as the TENDL-2023 data library. The degree of agreement between theory and experiments is discussed. The physical yields for ⁿᵃᵗZr(d,x)⁸⁶Y and other yttrium isotopes produced are calculated and compared to other production pathways.