No Arabic abstract
From the discovery of the neutrino to the precision neutrino oscillation measurements in KamLAND, nuclear reactors have proven to be an important source of antineutrinos. As their power and our knowledge of neutrino physics has increased, more sensitive measurements have become possible. The next generation of reactor antineutrino experiments require more detailed simulations of the reactor core. Many of the reactor simulation codes are proprietary which makes detailed studies difficult. Here we present the results of the open source DRAGON code and compare it to other industry standards for reactor modeling. We use published data from the Takahama reactor to determine the quality of the simulations. The propagation of the uncertainty to the antineutrino flux is also discussed.
Rising interest in nuclear reactors as a source of antineutrinos for experiments motivates validated, fast, and accessible simulations to predict reactor fission rates. Here we present results from the DRAGON and MURE simulation codes and compare them to other industry standards for reactor core modeling. We use published data from the Takahama-3 reactor to evaluate the quality of these simulations against the independently measured fuel isotopic composition. The propagation of the uncertainty in the reactor operating parameters to the resulting antineutrino flux predictions is also discussed.
For reactor antineutrino experiments, a thorough understanding of the fuel composition and isotopic evolution is of paramount importance for the extraction of $theta_{13}$. To accomplish these goals, we employ the deterministic lattice code DRAGON, and analyze the instantaneous antineutrino rate from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Unit 2 reactor in California. DRAGONs ability to predict the rate for two consecutive fuel cycles is examined.
Reactor antineutrino experiment are used to study neutrino oscillation, search for signatures of nonstandard neutrino interaction, and monitor reactor operation for safeguard application. Reactor simulation is an important source of uncertainties for a reactor neutrino experiment. Commercial code is used for reactor simulation to evaluate fission fraction in Daya Bay neutrino experiment, but the source code doesnt open to our researcher results from commercial secret. In this study, The open source code DRAGON was improved to calculate the fission rates of the four most important isotopes in fissions, $^{235}$U,$^{238}$U,$^{239}$Pu and $^{241}$Pu, and then was validated for PWRs using the Takahama-3 benchmark. The fission fraction results are consistent with those of MITs results. Then, fission fraction of Daya Bay reactor core was calculated by using improved DRAGON code, and the fission fraction calculated by DRAGON agreed well with these calculated by SCIENCE. The average deviation less than 5% for all the four isotopes. The correlation coefficient matrix between $^{235}$U,$^{238}$U,$^{239}$Pu and $^{241}$Pu were also studied using DRAGON, and then the uncertainty of the antineutrino flux by the fission fraction was calculated by using the correlation coefficient matrix. The uncertainty of the antineutrino flux by the fission fraction simulation is 0.6% per core for Daya Bay antineutrino experiment. The uncertainties source of fission fraction calculation need further to be studied in the future.
Neutrinos are elementary particles in the standard model of particle physics. There are 3 flavors of neutrinos that oscillate among themselves. Their oscillation can be described by a 3$times$3 unitary matrix, containing three mixing angles $theta_{12}$, $theta_{23}$, $theta_{13}$, and one CP phase. Both $theta_{12}$ and $theta_{23}$ are known from previous experiments. $theta_{13}$ was unknown just two years ago. The Daya Bay experiment gave the first definitive non-zero value in 2012. An improved measurement of the oscillation amplitude $sin^{2}2(theta_{13})$ = $0.090^{+0.008}_{-0.009}$ and the first direct measurement of the $bar u_{e}$ mass-squared difference $mid$$Delta m^2_{ee}$$mid$ = $(2.59^{+0.19}_{-0.20})times10^{-3} rm eV^{2}$ were obtained recently. The large value of $theta_{13}$ boosts the next generation of reactor antineutrino experiments designed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy, such as JUNO and RENO-50 .
Recently, three successful antineutrino experiments (Daya Bay, Double Chooz, and RENO) measured the neutrino mixing angle theta_13; however, significant discrepancies were found, both in the absolute flux and spectral shape. In this study, the antineutrino spectra were calculated by using the updated nuclear database, and we found that the four isotopes antineutrino spectrum have all contribution to the 5--7 MeV bump with ENDF/B-VII.1 fission yield. The bump can be explained well using the updated library and more important isotopes contribution to the bump were also given. In the last, the fission yield correlation coefficient between the four isotopes were discussed, and found that the correlation coefficients are very large.