Analysis of proton-induced fragment production cross sections by the quantum molecular dynamics plus statistical decay model

The production cross sections of various fragments from proton-induced reactions on Fe-56 and Al-27 have been analyzed by the quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) plus statistical decay model (SDM). It was found that the mass and charge distributions calculated with and without the statistical decay have very different shapes. These results also depend strongly on the impact parameter, showing an importance of the dynamical treatment as realized by the QMD approach. The calculated results were compared with experimental data in the energy region from 50 MeV to 5 GeV. The QMD+SDM calculation could reproduce the production cross sections of the light clusters and intermediate-mass to heavy fragments in a good accuracy. The production cross section of Be-7 was, however, underpredicted by approximately 2 orders of magnitude, showing the necessity of another reaction mechanism not taken into account in the present model.