Design and demonstration of a quasi-monoenergetic neutron source
Abstract not provided
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
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Results for “nuclear interactions”
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Microscopic optical potentials from a Green's function approach
Optical potentials are a standard tool in the study of nuclear reactions, as they describe the interaction between a target nucleus and a projectile. The use of phenomenological optical potentials built using experimental data on stable isotopes is widespread. Although successful in their dedicated domain, it is unclear whether these phenomenological potentials can provide reliable predictions for unstable isotopes. To address this problem, optical potentials based on microscopic nuclear structure input calculations prove to be crucial and are an important current line of research. In this work we present an explicit implementation of the Feshbach formalism for the systematic derivation of optical potentials using input from nuclear structure models. Numerical tools for the derivation of Green's functions associated with nonlocal potentials are presented. In conclusion, the new optical potential, based on the valence shell model, is applied to the calculations of 𝑛 + 24 Mg elastic scattering and yields a close agreement with the experimental data.
Direct reactions↗
From lattice QCD to in-medium heavy-quark interactions via deep learning
Bottomonium states are key probes for experimental studies of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in high-energy nuclear collisions. Theoretical models of bottomonium productions in high-energy nuclear collisions rely on the in-medium interactions between the bottom and antibottom quarks, which can be characterized by real (V R (T, r)) and imaginary (V I (T, r)) potentials, as functions of temperature and spatial separation. Recently, the masses and thermal widths of up to 3S and 2P bottomonium states in QGP were calculated using lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD). Starting from these LQCD results and through a novel application of deep neural network (DNN), here, we obtain model-independent results for V R (T, r) and V I (T, r). The temperature dependence of V R (T, r) was found to be very mild between T ≈ 0 - 330 MeV. Meanwhile, VI(T, r) shows rapid increase with T and r, which is much larger than the perturbation theory based expectations.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Electromagnetic Interactions in a Shielded PET/MRI System for Simultaneous PET/MR Imaging in 9.4 T: Evaluation and Results.
N/A
38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
Considerations for Introducing Artificial Intelligence into Nuclear Power Plants
Advanced computational tools and techniques such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) can transform the nuclear power industry. This is necessary given that the economic viability of the existing fleet is in jeopardy and its labor-centric approach to operations and maintenance. Currently, AI/ML research is being undertaken for reactor system design and analysis including fault and accident prognosis, nuclear risk analysis such as plant safety and security evaluation, and plant operations and maintenance including predictive maintenance. Applications include both existing and advanced reactor technologies with the aim of improving operational and business efficiencies. Most every aspect of the organization can benefit, from instrumentation and control, to work planning, to human-machine interactions and business management. AI/ML in nuclear can simplify complex problems and produce more effective decision-making. Nonetheless, careful consideration must be given to the implementation of an AI/ML initiative. The aims of this research are to 1) review barriers to AI/ML adoption within the nuclear power industry, and 2) suggest potential solutions. These barriers are organized along five distinct categories (Figure 1) that are interconnected. The first are historical barriers that track the industry’s development over the decades including worldwide nuclear events that shaped public perceptions. The resulting federal scrutiny and intense safety culture that emerged are discussed. Technical barriers to AI/ML adoption are considerable, and include data privacy concerns, data governance, and the current lack of AI/ML expert knowledge at the plants. The main business case barrier remains cost, but an absence of an industry-wide vision and wide-scale adoption also produces reluctance. Stakeholder readiness is reviewed with special attention given to regulatory readiness. The 5-year strategic plan for AI readiness recently published by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is highlighted. Last, adoption barriers at the user level are addressed including the importance of user experience and explainable AI. The AI adoption barriers described here are inter-related and ideally should be addressed in a holistic fashion.
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
Nuclear effects in neutrino oscillation experiments
We have studied the nuclear medium effects in the neutrino(antineutrino) induced interactions in nuclei which are relevant for present neutrino oscillation experiments in the few GeV energy region. The study is specially focused on calculating the cross sections and the event rates for atmospheric and accelerator neutrino experiments. The nuclear effects are found to be important for the quasielastic lepton production and the charged current incoherent and coherent pion production processes.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
The NASA CSTI High Capacity Power Program
NASA's Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI) has as its primary goal the improvement of space nuclear power-related technologies and their interactions with the given mission environment. The CSTI High Capacity Power Program supports and advances all nonnuclear aspects of the national SP-100 Space Nuclear Reactor Program, including the demonstration of a 1050 K Stirling Space Power System capable of employing the full output capability of the SP-100 reactor. Thermoelectric technology capable of reaching Z values of 0.001/K with SiGe/GaP will be demonstrated in the course of the program.
Winter, Jerry M.↗
Ab Initio Structure Factors for Spin-Dependent Dark Matter Direct Detection
We present converged ab initio calculations of structure factors for elastic spin-dependent WIMP scattering off all nuclei used in dark matter direct-detection searches: 19 F, 23 Na, 27 Al, 29 Si, 73 Ge, 12 7I, and 129,131 Xe. From a set of established two- and three-nucleon interactions derived within chiral effective field theory, we construct consistent WIMP-nucleon currents at the one-body level, including effects from axial-vector two-body currents. We then apply the in-medium similarity renormalization group to construct effective valence-space Hamiltonians and consistently transformed operators of nuclear responses. Combining the recent advances of natural orbitals with three-nucleon forces expressed in large spaces, we obtain basis-space converged structure factors even in heavy nuclei. Generally results are consistent with previous calculations but large uncertainties in 127 I highlight the need for further study.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Complete Demonstration of a Prototype Version of FORCE User Interface and Conduct Analyst Survey Collecting Feedback on Interface Features and Usability
In 2024 the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) Integrated Energy System (IES) program continued to develop the Framework for Optimization of Resources and Economics (FORCE) analysis ecosystem into a more traditional toolset with simplified software installation, automated workflows, and interactive results visualization. The DOE-NE Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Workbench continued to be leveraged for user input, application workflow and runtime environment, and interactive results visualization capabilities. This report documents the demonstration of a FORCE User Interface (UI) prototype and the results of a survey of analysts’ using the Holistic Energy Resource Optimization Network (HERON) tool in FORCE with the prototype UI.
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
Pairing and Short-Range Correlations in Nuclear Systems
The structure and density dependence of the pairing gap in infinite matter is relevant for astrophysical phenomena and provides a starting point for the discussion of pairing properties in nuclear structure. Short-range correlations can significantly deplete the available single-particle strength around the Fermi surface and thus provide a reduction mechanism of the pairing gap. Here, we study this effect in the singlet and triplet channels of both neutron matter and symmetric nuclear matter. Our calculations use phase-shift equivalent interactions and chiral two-body and three-body interactions as a starting point. We find an unambiguous reduction of the gap in all channels with very small dependence on the NN force in the singlet neutron matter and the triplet nuclear matter channel. In the latter channel, SRC alone provide a 50% reduction of the pairing gap.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Multi-meson systems in lattice QCD / Many-body QCD
Nuclear physics entails the study of the properties and interactions of hadrons, such as the proton and neutron, and atomic nuclei and it is central to our understanding of our world at the smallest scales. The underlying basis for nuclear physics is provided by the Standard Model of particle physics which describes how matter interacts through the strong, electromagnetic and weak (electroweak) forces. This theory was developed in the 1970s and provides an extremely successful description of our world at the most fundamental level to which it has been probed. The Standard Model has been, and continues to be, subject to stringent tests at particle accelerators around the world, so far passing without blemish. However, at the relatively low energies that are relevant for nuclear physics, calculations involving the strong interaction, governed by the equations of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), are enormously challenging, and to date, the only systematic way to perform them is numerically, using a framework known as lattice QCD (LQCD). In this approach, one discretizes space-time and numerically solves the equations of QCD on a space-time lattice; for realistic calculations, this requires highly optimized algorithms and cutting-edge high performance computing (HPC) resources. Progress over the project period is discussed in detail in the following subsections
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
The MINERνA detector
MINERνA (Main INjector Experiment for ν-A) is a dedicated neutrino-nucleus scattering experiment at Fermilab. It uses a fine-grained fully active detector to make precision measurements of neutrino and antineutrino interactions on a variety of different nuclear targets (plastic scintillator, C, Fe, Pb, He and H2O) for energies up to few GeV. An overview of the experiment and a description of the detector are presented.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Toward Accelerated Nuclear-physics Parameter Estimation from Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Emulators for the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff Equations
Abstract Gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron-star (BNS) mergers have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the nuclear equation of state (EOS) and the fundamental interactions that determine its properties. However, Bayesian parameter estimation frameworks do not typically sample over microscopic nuclear-physics parameters that determine the EOS. One of the major hurdles in doing so is the computational cost involved in solving the neutron-star structure equations, known as the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equations. In this paper, we explore approaches to emulating solutions for the TOV equations: multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), Gaussian processes, and a data-driven variant of the reduced basis method (RBM). We implement these emulators for three different parameterizations of the nuclear EOS, each with a different degree of complexity represented by the number of model parameters. We find that our MLP-based emulators are generally more accurate than the other two algorithms, whereas the RBM results in the largest speedup with respect to the full high-fidelity TOV solver. We employ these emulators for a simple parameter inference using a potentially loud BNS observation and show that the posteriors predicted by our emulators are in excellent agreement with those obtained from the full TOV solver.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
Novel ATPase activity of the polyprotein intermediate, Viral Protein genome-linked-Nuclear Inclusion-a protease, of Pepper vein banding potyvirus
Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Pepper vein banding potyvirus VPg harbors Walker motifs. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer VPg exhibits ATPase activity in the presence of NIa-Pro. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Plausible structural and functional interplay between VPg and NIa-Pro. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Functional relevance of prolonged presence of VPg-Pro during infection. -- Abstract: Potyviruses temporally regulate their protein function by polyprotein processing. Previous studies have shown that VPg (Viral Protein genome-linked) of Pepper vein banding virus interacts with the NIa-Pro (Nuclear Inclusion-a protease) domain, and modulates the kinetics of the protease. In the present study, we report for the first time that VPg harbors the Walker motifs A and B, and the presence of NIa-Pro, especially in cis (cleavage site (E191A) VPg-Pro mutant), is essential for manifestation of the ATPase activity. Mutation of Lys47 (Walker motif A) and Asp88:Glu89 (Walker motif B) to alanine in E191A VPg-Pro lead to reduced ATPase activity, confirming that this activity was inherent to VPg. We propose that potyviral VPg, established as an intrinsically disordered domain, undergoes plausible structural alterations upon interaction with globular NIa-Pro which induces the ATPase activity.
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
Neutrino-Nucleus Reactions at MeV Region based on New Shell-Model Hamiltonians
Neutrino-nucleus reactions at MeV region are evaluated by using new shell model Hamiltonians, which are found to improve the description of spin degrees of freedom in nuclei as well as shell evolutions. The light element synthesis by neutrino processes in supernova explosions is discussed with the use of the new reaction cross sections for {sup 12}C and {sup 4}He. Possible constraints on the mixing angle {theta}{sub 13} and the neutrino mass hierarchy are pointed out to be imposed by the production yields of {sup 7}Li and {sup 11}B. Spin-dipole transition strengths in {sup 16}O and neutrino-induced reactions on {sup 16}O are investigated with the new improved Hamiltonian. The Gamow-Teller transition strength in {sup 56}Ni for the new Hamiltonian, which is more fragmented compared to previous calculations, is found to lead to the enhancement of the production yield of {sup 55}Mn in population III stars.
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
Long-distance nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double-beta decay from lattice QCD
Neutrinoless double-beta ( 0 ν β β ) decay is a heretofore unobserved process which, if observed, would imply that neutrinos are Majorana particles. Interpretations of the stringent experimental constraints on 0 ν β β -decay half-lives require calculations of nuclear matrix elements. This work presents the first lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD) calculation of the matrix element for 0 ν β β decay in a multinucleon system, specifically the n n → p p e e transition, mediated by a light left-handed Majorana neutrino propagating over nuclear-scale distances. This calculation is performed with quark masses corresponding to a pion mass of m π = 806 MeV at a single lattice spacing and volume. The statistically cleaner Σ − → Σ + e e transition is also computed in order to investigate various systematic uncertainties. The prospects for matching the results of LQCD calculations onto a nuclear effective field theory to determine a leading-order low-energy constant relevant for 0 ν β β decay with a light Majorana neutrino are investigated. This work, therefore, sets the stage for future calculations at physical values of the quark masses that, combined with effective field theory and nuclear many-body studies, will provide controlled theoretical inputs to experimental searches of 0 ν β β decay. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
High-Pressure Gaseous Argon TPC for the DUNE Near Detector
The DUNE Near Detector design consists of multiple components, each designed to produce complementary constraints on flux and neutrino interaction systematic uncertainties for the oscillation analyses. One of these subdetectors is a magnetized high-pressure gaseous-argon TPC (HPgTPC), which will provide fine-grained tracking in a low-density detector, using the same target nucleus as the DUNE far detector. With its low momentum threshold for particle detection, the HPgTPC will be able to constrain one of the most crucial - and least-well understood - uncertainties for the oscillation analysis: nuclear effects in neutrino-argon interactions. These proceedings describe the current design, physics goals, and projected performance of the HPgTPC, as well as the ongoing R&D work at Fermilab, in which a test-stand TPC is being built and will be operated at up to 10 atm pressure.
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
Ninth International Workshop on Chiral Dynamics, 2018
The Ninth International Workshop on Chiral Dynamics (CD18) was hosted by the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) and held on the campus of Duke University in Durham, NC. The workshop was from September 17 th to 21 st , 2018. This series of workshops, which started at MIT in 1994, brings together theorists and experimentalists every three years to discuss the status and challenges in the physics of low-energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD), Goldstone Boson dynamics, meson-baryon interactions, few-body physics, lattice QCD and Chiral Perturbation Theory. The last workshop was jointly hosted by the Department of Physics of the University of Pisa and the Pisa branch of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in July 2015. Previous hosts of the workshop include MIT in 1994, the University of Mainz in 1997, Jefferson Lab in 2000 and 2012, the University of Bonn in 2003, TUNL and Duke University in 2006, and the University of Bern in 2009. Hosting this workshop is an important and substantial service to the international low-energy QCD physics community. Nearly 120 participants attended the workshop, which delivered twenty plenary talks, and over ninety parallel presentations. Proceedings of the workshop are published in Proceedings of Science at https://pos.sissa.it/317/. These proceedings present topics convened in this 9 th workshop and provide a comprehensive review of the field, highlighting recent accomplishments and discussing challenges that will motivate research in the coming years.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗