Photodisintegration of Lithium Isotopes

It is clear that new experimental data is needed to compare with recent Lorentz Integral Transform calculations of the photodisintegration cross sections of the lithium isotopes. We describe a recent measurement on these isotopes performed with the monochromatic, polarized photon beam at the High Intensity Gamma-Ray Source (HIGS) at Duke University in Durham, NC, USA. The Blowfish Neutron Detector Array, a segmented neutron detector array with good angular resolution that covers $\raise.5ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 1$}\kern-.1em/ \kern-.15em\lower.25ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 4$} $ of 4$\pi $ steradians, was used to detect photoneutrons. Clear separation of various reaction channels is possible which allows detector efficiencies to be accurately modeled using a GEANT4 simulation. Several methods for obtaining the incident photon flux are available so precision cross sections between 8 and 35 MeV can be obtained.