s- and p-wave neutron spectroscopy. Part III. Area analysis of neutron resonances

In the commonly used methods of area analysis of neutron resonances observed in transmission experiments the interference between resonance and potential scettering is either neglected or taken into account only approximately. A method of analysis is developed here which takes into account such interference accurately. It is shown that the importance of the interference effect in obtaining Γ or gΓ_n is determined not only by the size of the potential phase shift, but also by the sample thickness. Results of calculations are presented and it is shown that the errors inherent in the conventional methods of analysis due to the neglect of interference effect can become abnormally large in certain cases. Such cases are usual in the kev region of neutron energy and not uncommon in the ev region. In the kev region of neutron energy certain cases also occur in which the conventional area is close to zero and leads to very inaccurate determination of widths. For such cases a new method of area analysis is proposed. Some applications of the new analysis techniques for analhsis of individual resonances are presented.