Light charged particles production from reaction of protons with ⁹⁰Zr nucleus at 22 MeV energy

In this paper, we present new experimental data for the (p,xp) and (p,xα) reactions on a ⁹⁰Zr target at a proton energy of 22 MeV. Double-differential cross-sections were measured within the angular range of 30°–135° for both proton and α emission. The data were analyzed using modern nuclear-reaction codes TALYS 1.9, EMPIRE 3.2 and PRECO-2006, which implement the exciton model in combination with direct and compound-nucleus mechanisms. The experimental spectra clearly reveal contributions from evaporation, pre-equilibrium and direct processes. Comparisons with theory show that EMPIRE and PRECO reproduce the main features of the (p,xp) spectra, while TALYS provides a satisfactory description only in the low-energy evaporation region. For the (p,xα) channel, the use of the Iwamoto–Harada model in EMPIRE ensures very good agreement with the measured data, whereas TALYS and PRECO reproduce only general trends. These results provide important benchmarks for improving the predictive power of pre-equilibrium nuclear-reaction models in the up to 200 MeV energy range.