Can We Extract Production Cross-Sections from Thick Target Yield Measurements? A Case Study Using Scandium Radioisotopes

Abstract In this work, we present an attempt to estimate the reaction excitation function based on the measurements of thick target yield. We fit a function to experimental data points and then use three fitting parameters to calculate the cross-section. We applied our approach to 43Ca(p,n)43Sc, 44Ca(p,n)44gSc, 44Ca(p,n)44mSc, 48Ca(p,2n)47Sc and 48Ca(p,n)48Sc reactions. A general agreement was observed between the reconstructions and the available cross-section data. The algorithm described here can be used to roughly estimate cross-section values, but it requires improvements