Comprehensive nuclear model calculations: Introduction to the theory and use of the GNASH code

Abstract

A user's manual describing the theory and operation of the GNASH nuclear reaction computer code is presented. This work is based on a series of lectures describing the statistical Hauser-Feshbach plus preequilibrium version of the code with full angular momentum conservation. This version is expected to be most applicable for incident particle energies between 1 key and 50 MeV. General features of the code, the nuclear models that are utilized, input parameters needed to perform calculations, and the output quantities from typical problems are described in detail. The computational structure of the code and the subroutines and functions that are called are summarized as well. Two detailed examples are considered: 14-MeV neutrons incident on {sup 93}Nb and 12-MeV neutrons incident on {sup 238}U. The former example illustrates a typical calculation aimed at determining neutron, proton, and alpha emission spectra from 14-MeV reactions, and the latter example demonstrates use of the fission model in GNASH.