NJOY21: Next generation nuclear data processing capabilities

Abstract

NJOY is a well respected code for nuclear data processing throughout the world. It was first publicly released in 1977 as a successor to MINX and has continuously improved its capabilities ever since. The latest release of NJOY is NJOY2012 and was released in December 2012 with its latest update coming in February 2015. A new effort has begun at Los Alamos National Laboratory to ensure that NJOY remains a useful nuclear data processing code for the next generation of data processing needs. The result of this effort will be NJOY21, a new code for processing nuclear data and interacting with a variety of nuclear data files. Much has changed in the nuclear data world since NJOY was first released. Perhaps the biggest change is the increase in the amount of data—both in the number of available materials and the richness of the data for each material. While more and better nuclear data greatly improves the quality of simulations and calculations that rely on that data, it creates significant challenges for the individual who processes and verifies the nuclear data. NJOY2012 is well vetted and capable, but when processing many files/materials, it is cumbersome and slow. NJOY21 will build on the success of many previous major releases of NJOY made during the previous four decades. In addition, NJOY21 will facilitate the processing, verifying, and validating of many nuclear data files.