PaperPanorama

Nuclear Theory·nucl-th

Thursday·June 9, 2016

4 papers3 primary·1 cross-listed

  1. 01

    Fission waves can oscillate

    Andrew G Osborne · Mark R Deinert

    Under the right conditions, self sustaining fission waves can form in fertile nuclear materials. These waves result from the transport and absorption of neutrons and the resulting production of fissile isotopes. When these fission, additional neutrons are produced and the chain reaction propagates until it is poisoned by the buildup of fission products. It is typically assumed that fission waves are soliton-like and self stabilizing. However, we show that in uranium, coupling of the neutron field to the 239U->239Np->239Pu decay chain can lead to a Hopf bifurcation. The fission reaction then ramps up and down, along with the wave velocity. The critical driver for the instability is a delay, caused by the half-life of 239U, between the time evolution of the neutron field and the production of 239Pu. This allows the 239Pu to accumulate and burn out in a self limiting oscillation that is characteristic of a Hopf bifurcation. Time dependent results are obtained using a numerical implementation of a reduced order reaction-diffusion model for a fast neutron field. Monte Carlo simulations in combination with a linear stability analysis are used to confirm the results for the full system and to establish the parameter space where the Hopf occurs.

    nucl-thnlin.PS0 citations
  2. 02

    Landau theory of nuclear level density and its application in description of nuclear level density in the region of discrete and s-wave neutron resonance energies

    A.Elmas · H.Ahmadov · B.Gonul

    In this work, the reliability of the Landau expression for the nuclear level density calculations is tested, for the first-time, to describe nuclear level densities of some light, intermediate mass and heavy nuclei at excitations corresponding to discrete and s-wave neutron resonance energies. The chi-2 minimizing method is used in treatment of the experimental data for the two suggested energy range of discrete energies given by Nuclear Data Sheet [1] and by the systematic for nuclear level density parametrization in [2]. Our comparison with the related data in the discrete energy range has shown that the results obtained by the Landau expression are better than those of back-shifted Fermi-gas model and constant temperature approximation. This result is also valid for some nuclei of interest when the s-wave neutron resonance level density is included to check theoretical prescriptions in the energy range from initial bound states to unbound states near the neutron binding energy.

    nucl-thnucl-ex0 citations
  3. 03

    Rapidity Correlation Structure in Nuclear Collisions

    Sean Gavin🇺🇸 · George Moschelli🇺🇸 · Christopher Zin🇺🇸

    We show that measurements of the rapidity dependence of transverse momentum correlations can be used to determine the characteristic time that dictates the rate of isotropization of the stress energy tensor, as well as the shear viscosity . We formulate methods for computing these correlations using second order dissipative hydrodynamics with noise. Current data are consistent with , but targeted measurements can improve this precision.

    nucl-thhep-phPRC(2016)·21 citations
  4. 04

    Field Theories Without a Holographic Dual

    Brett McInnes🇸🇬

    In applying the gauge-gravity duality to the quark-gluon plasma, one models the plasma using a particular kind of field theory with specified values of the temperature, magnetic field, and so forth. One then assumes that the bulk, an asymptotically AdS black hole spacetime with properties chosen to match those of the boundary field theory, can be embedded in string theory. But this is not always the case: there are field theories with no bulk dual. The question is whether these theories might include those used to study the actual plasmas produced at such facilities as the RHIC experiment or the relevant experiments at the LHC. We argue that, \emph{provided} that due care is taken to include the effects of the angular momentum associated with the magnetic fields experienced by the plasmas produced by peripheral collisions, the existence of the dual can be established for the RHIC plasmas. In the case of the LHC plasmas, the situation is much more doubtful.

    hep-thhep-phnucl-thNPB(2016)·4 citations

Affiliations

first authorsco-authorsvia INSPIRE