<abstract xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The results from modern nuclear theory are accurate and reliable enough to be used for practical applications, in particular for scattering that involves few-nucleon systems of importance to nuclear power. Using well-established nucleon-nucleon (NN) interactions that fit well the NN scattering data, and the AGS form of the three-body theory, we have performed precise calculations of low-energy neutron-deuteron (<italic>n</italic>+<italic>d</italic>) scattering. We show that three-nucleon force effects that have impact on the low-energy vector analyzing powers have no practical effects on the angular distribution of the <italic>n</italic>+<italic>d</italic> cross-section. There appear to be problems for this scattering in the evaluated nuclear data file (ENDF) libraries, at the incident neutron energies less than 3.2 MeV. Supporting experimental data in this energy region are rather old (>25 years), sparse and often inconsistent. Our three-body results at low energies, 50 keV to 10.0 MeV, are compared to the ENDF/B-VII.0 and JENDL (Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library) -3.3 evaluated angular distributions. The impact of these results on the calculated reactivity for various critical systems involving heavy water is shown.</p></abstract>

The results from modern nuclear theory are accurate and reliable enough to be used for practical applications, in particular for scattering that involves few-nucleon systems of importance to nuclear power. Using well-established nucleon-nucleon (NN) interactions that fit well the NN scattering data, and the AGS form of the three-body theory, we have performed precise calculations of low-energy neutron-deuteron (n+d) scattering. We show that three-nucleon force effects that have impact on the low-energy vector analyzing powers have no practical effects on the angular distribution of the n+d cross-section. There appear to be problems for this scattering in the evaluated nuclear data file (ENDF) libraries, at the incident neutron energies less than 3.2 MeV. Supporting experimental data in this energy region are rather old (>25 years), sparse and often inconsistent. Our three-body results at low energies, 50 keV to 10.0 MeV, are compared to the ENDF/B-VII.0 and JENDL (Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library) -3.3 evaluated angular distributions. The impact of these results on the calculated reactivity for various critical systems involving heavy water is shown.

Nuclear Theory - Nuclear Power

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, and Winnipeg Institute for Theoretical Physics, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, sezione di Padova e Dipartimento di Fisica, dell'Università di Padova, via Marzolo 8, I-35131 Padova, Italia

Chalk River Laboratories, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River, ON, Canada K0J 1J0

Latvian Journal of Physics and Technical Sciences

{"article-title":"Nuclear Theory - Nuclear Power"}

The results from modern nuclear theory are accurate and reliable enough to be used for practical applications, in particular for scattering that involves...

Nuclear Theory - Nuclear Power

Publié en ligne: 23 sept. 2008

Pages: 57 - 68

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10047-008-0020-8

This content is open access.