Nuclear interaction models in FLUKA
Francesco Cerutti (CERN-EN/STI)
GANIL Guest House (GANIL)
Since the Rutherford's pioneer experiments of a century ago, the investigation of nuclear reaction mechanisms shed light on a variety of processes, observed in different energy regimes and described by coexisting theoretical approaches, with defined applicability limits, being unavailable a fundamental theory able to effectively account for the complexity of phenomena. Nuclear dynamics still represents an interesting subject within the framework of basic research, where it plays also an essential role for producing and studying exotic matter.
Moreover, it turns out to provide a crucial input in several interdisciplinary fields (e.g. activation problems, radiation damage, ion accelerators, hadron-therapy, space radiation protection, ...), requiring a reliable characterization of the nuclear reaction products generated in the radiation-matter interaction, in order to predict critical macroscopic quantities, like absorbed and biological dose or induced activity.
In this seminar the nuclear interaction models implemented in the multipurpose Monte-Carlo code FLUKA are reviewed, with particular focus on ion reactions, treated by different event generators according to the incident energy. The final de-excitation of hot fragments is handled by the same evaporation/fragmentation/fission module, applying also to the last stage of hadron-nucleus interactions. In addition, the decay of unstable residues can be performed on-line. Benchmarking examples are shown and development plans are discussed.
