New insights on fission of 235U induced by high energy neutrons

The ^235U(n,f) reaction cross section was measured relative to neutron-proton elastic scattering for the first time in the energy region from 10 MeV to 440 MeV at the CERN n_TOF facility. Two independent detection systems were used simultaneously to extract the fission cross section. For neutron energies below 200 MeV, the present results agree within one standard deviation with the data available in literature and are well reproduced by the IAEA evaluation. Above 200 MeV, the comparison of model calculations to the present data indicates the need to introduce a transient time in the description of the neutron-induced fission process in order to allow the simultaneous description of (n,f) and (p,f) reactions.