Search

Recently a renewed interest in photonuclear reactions has appeared. It is motivated by a number of different applications where progress in reliable and, in some cases, very high-intensity electron accelerators was awaited. In particular, today's interest is linked to the nuclear material interrogation and non-destructive nuclear waste characterization, both based either on prompt neutron, or delayed neutron, or delayed gamma detection following photofission. The knowledge of photonuclear reactions is also extremely important in the design of electron accelerators used for medical applications, nuclear physics, photoneutron sources, radioactive ion beam production, etc. In this paper we present the photonuclear activation file (PAF) under development to be included into any material depletion code. By now the PAF contains the photonuclear cross-sections for more than 600 isotopes, fission fragment distributions and delayed neutron evaluations for most of the actinides in the photon energy range from 0 up to 25 MeV. Theoretical predictions, evaluated data files and available experimental data were used to construct the PAF, and some benchmarks are in progress to ensure its quality. The release of the first version of PAF is planned in 2006.

Photons with energies above 6 MeV can be used to detect small amounts of nuclear material inside large cargo containers. The method consists in using an intense beam of high-energy photons (bremsstrahlung radiation) in order to induce reactions of photofission on actinides. The measurement of delayed neutrons and delayed gammas emitted by fission products brings specific information on localization and quantification of the nuclear material. A simultaneous measurement of both of these delayed signals can overcome some important limitations due to matrix effects like heavy shielding and/or the presence of light elements as hydrogen. We have a long experience in the field of nuclear waste package characterization by photon interrogation and we have demonstrated that presently the detection limit can be less than one gram of actinide per ton of package. Recently we tried to extend our knowledge to assess the performance of this method for the detection of special nuclear materials in sea and air freights. This paper presents our first results based on experimental measurements carried out in the SAPHIR facility, which houses a linear electron accelerator with the energy range from 15 MeV to 30 MeV. Our experiments were also modeled using the full scale Monte Carlo techniques. In addition, and in a more general frame, due to the lack of consistent data on photonuclear reactions, we have been working on the development of a new photonuclear activation file (PAF), which includes cross sections for more than 600 isotopes including photofission fragment distributions and delayed neutron tables for actinides. Therefore, this work includes also some experimental results obtained at the ELSA electron accelerator, which is more adapted for precise basic nuclear data measurements.

An event generator, HIPSE (heavy-ion phase-space exploration), dedicated to the description of nuclear collisions in the intermediate energy range is presented. Based on the sudden approximation and on geometrical hypothesis, it can conveniently simulate heavy-ion interactions at all impact parameters and thus can constitute a valuable tool for the understanding of processes such as neck emission or multifragmentation in peripheral or∕and central collisions. After a detailed description of the ingredients of the model, first comparisons with experimental data collected by the INDRA Collaboration are shown. Special emphasis is put on the kinematical characteristics of fragments and light particles observed at all impact parameters for $\text{Xe}+\text{Sn}$ reactions at 25 and $50\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{MeV}∕\mathrm{nucleon}$ and $\text{Ni}+\text{Ni}$ at $82\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{MeV}∕\mathrm{nucleon}$.