Visible light exposure of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope, X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory & math reconstruction of dark matter location. D. Coe & J. Merten/ESO/NASA/ESA/CXC

Extracting neutron and gamma-ray observables from correlated fission modeling

Amy Lovell (Hosted by King/Pastore), Los Alamos National Lab

Modeling the complete fission process from the formation of the compound nucleus, through scission and splitting the system into two (or more) fission fragments, and the emission of prompt and delayed neutrons and gamma rays typically requires several different calculations that feed into one another or that can only be used to determine a specific observable.  However, the fission fragments and emitted particles are highly correlated and should be modeled in a consistent manner.  Models developed at Los Alamos aim to do just that.  One of these models, CGMF, is a Monte Carlo Hauser-Feshbach model that begins with the initial conditions of the fission fragments then allows for the consistent emission of prompt neutrons and gamma rays.  During each step in the decay, energy, momentum, spin, and parity are conserved.  Using this type of calculation, we can study correlations between the fission fragments, neutrons, and gamma rays and use these correlations to extract interesting and potentially hard-to-measure information.  In this talk, I will present two correlated fission studies that we have recently performed with CGMF.  First, I will show how we extracted information about the multiplicity distribution of the prompt neutrons from total kinetic energies of the fission fragments and total gamma-ray energies.  Then, I will discuss a study where we more completely modeled the angular anisotropies of the fission fragments and emitted neutrons along with correlations between them.  Finally, I will present an outlook for future work, including an overview of methods we have been investigating to supplement available experimental data and correct for model defects.

Zoom link available upon request at physics@wustl.edu.
Post-docs and students' Q&A with the speaker starts at 2:15 pm.  Contact Garrett King for the Q&A Zoom link.