Study of the 45Sc(n, γ) reaction

Primary and secondary γ-rays from the ⁴⁵Sc(n, γ) reaction were measured at four resonances, two of them of p-wave (460.6 and 1060.4 eV) and the others of s-wave (3290 and 4330 eV) character. High accuracy measurements at near the thermal region (0.14-7.65 eV) resulted in an improved set of primary γ-ray energies and level energies above 1 MeV. We obtain a neutron binding energy $\text{B}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>n</mtext>}}\text{(}{}^{45}\text{Sc}\text{) = 8760.5(2)}\text{keV}$. Absolute intensities of primary capture γ-rays were derived by comparison to the resonance capture in gold at 4.91 eV. El and Ml radiation strengths were observed to be about equal. No correlation of any kind either between (n, γ) or (d, p) strengths or between adjacent s- and p-wave capture] was observed. The primary γ-ray spectrum following the capture of polarized neutrons in oriented and unoriented ⁴⁵Sc nuclei was studied. A combined χ² analysis of these two experiments resulted in 21 unique spin assignments and many spin restrictions. The fraction of spin J = 3^? in thermal capture was determined to be (92 + 5)%. From the observed transition rates to final states of known spin, J = 3 assignments result for the two p-wave resonances studied.