A study of the 59Co(n,n′γ)59Co reaction

The ⁵⁹Co(n, n'γ)⁵⁹Co reaction has been studied for incident neutron energies ranging from 1.3 to 3.9 MeV. The pulsed-beam time-of-flight technique was employed to discriminate between the inelastically scattered neutrons and the de-excitation γ-rays, which were detected by means of a true-coaxial Ge(Li) detector. Thirty-five levels were identified in this way, and their excitation functions have been extensively compared with the predictions of the statistical theory of the compound nucleus. Possible spin assignements to the levels of ⁵⁹Co are discussed and compared with the results available from previous works.