This work presents the cross sections for radioactive nuclide production in ${}^{56}\mathrm{Fe}$($p,x$) reactions determined in six experiments using 300, 500, 750, 1000, 1500, and 2600 MeV protons of the external beam from the ITEP U-10 proton accelerator. In total, 221 independent and cumulative yields of radioactive residuals of half-lives from 6.6 min to 312 d have been obtained. The radioactive product nuclide yields were determined by direct $\gamma$-spectrometry. The measured data have been compared with the experimental data obtained elsewhere by the direct and inverse kinematics methods and with calculation results of 15 different codes that simulated hadron-nucleus interactions: MCNPX (INCL, CEM2K, BERTINI, ISABEL), LAHET (BERTINI, ISABEL), CEM03 (.01, .G1, .S1), LAQGSM03 (.01, .G1, .S1), CASCADE-2004, LAHETO, and BRIEFF. Most of the data obtained here are in a good agreement with the inverse kinematics results and disprove the results of some earlier activation measurements that were quite different from the inverse kinematics measurements. The most significant calculation-to-experiment differences are observed in the yields of the $A<30$ light nuclei, indicating that further improvements in nuclear reaction models are needed, and pointing out as well to a necessity of more complete experimental measurements of such reaction products.

• Received 31 January 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.78.034615