Evaluation of thermal-neutron cross-sections of moderator materials using a synthetic scattering function

Abstract

We discuss here some applications of synthetic thermal-neutron scattering function (SSF) with special emphasis on topics of interest in the field of nuclear engineering. This scattering function was basically devised to describe the interaction of slow neutrons with molecules, although the cases that we will discuss here involve hydrogeneous molecules, due to their importance as moderator materials. The analytic character of the expressions for scattering kernels and cross-sections derived from the SSF permits an easy modelling of any molecule and a very fast computation of the required quantities under different physical conditions.