BNL Activities in Advanced Neutron Source Development: Past and Present

Brookhaven National Laboratory has been involved in advanced neutron sources almost from its inception in 1947. These efforts have mainly focused on steady state reactors beginning with the construction of the first research reactor for neutron beams, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This was followed by the High Flux Beam Reactor that has served as the design standard for all the subsequent high flux reactors constructed worldwide. In parallel with the reactor developments BNL has focused on the construction and use of high energy proton accelerators. The first machine to operate over 1 GeV in the world was the Cosmotron. The machine that followed this, the AGS, is still operating and is the highest intensity proton machine in the world and has nucleated an international collaboration investigating liquid metal targets for next generation pulsed spallation sources. Early work using the Cosmotron focused on spallation product studies for both light and heavy elements into the several GeV proton energy region. These original studies are still important today. In this report we discuss the facilities and activities at BNL focused on advanced neutron sources. BNL is involved in the proton source for the Spallation Neutron source, spectrometer development at LANSCE, target studies using the AGS and state-of-the-art neutron detector development