Abstract
Nuclear data related to the fission process are needed for a wide variety of research areas, including fundamental science, nuclear energy and non-proliferation. While some of the relevant data have been measured to the required accuracies there are still many aspects of fission that need further investigation. One such aspect is how Total Kinetic Energy (TKE), fragment yields, angular distributions and other fission observables depend on excitation energy of the fissioning system. Another question is the correlation between mass, charge and energy of fission fragments. At the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) we are studying neutron-induced fission at incident energies from thermal up to hundreds of MeV using the Lujan Center and Weapons Neutron Research (WNR) facilities. Advanced instruments such as SPIDER (time-of-flight and kinetic energy spectrometer), the NIFFTE Time Projection Chamber (TPC), and Frisch grid Ionization Chambers (FGIC) are used to investigate the properties of fission fragments, and some important results for the major actinides have been obtained.
Highlights
Two facilities at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) are used for fission fragment studies: Weapons Neutron Research (WNR) and the Lujan Center
The SPIDER instrument is a type of spectrometer that measures the velocities and kinetic energies of fission fragments in order to determine their mass
A detailed description of the fission Time Projection Chamber (TPC) can be found in Ref. [6]
Summary
Over the last decade we have seen a resurgence in fission research, both in terms of experimental capabilities and new theoretical advances. In nuclear technologies we need to accurately understand and characterize criticality, and the nuclear fission data has the most impact on criticality. Properties of fission are important to nuclear technologies in a different way; fission products and radiation output can be used to diagnose and characterize nuclear performance. One such example is the practice to determine the presence of the 148Nd fission product in spent nuclear fuel to determine the burn-up level. There are currently several experimental and theoretical efforts underway at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to advance our understanding of the fission process; here we will describe the experimental program to measure properties of fission fragments
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