Title: Improved Nuclear Data for Nonproliferation Applications
Mentor: Rian Bahran, Garrett McMath
Description: Given the increasing role of modeling and simulation in the nonproliferation technical subspace, it is crucial that the underlying nuclear data be accurate. Weaknesses in that data undercut the work and the conclusions based on that work including those that feed into high-stakes decision-making in the policy world. The full list of nuclear data deficiencies for non-proliferation applications is quite large, and the focus of many efforts in this realm is related to correlated particle emissions.
The proposed work is to leverage the existing tools and capabilities from community-wide parallel efforts to perform nuclear data sensitivity studies specifically for neutron total and partial cross sections. The results will help with the prioritization of evaluated library deficiencies regarding what would have a substantive effect if better data would be made available. The second part of the proposed work is to determine further impact of better data based on integral/differential measurement feasibility studies (and ultimately experiment design for future work) for predicting an achievable level of improvement.
Duration: 10-12 weeks
Number of students: 1-2