Possible options for efficient wide-band polychromatic measurements using chopper spectrometers at pulsed sources

Nakajima, Kenji; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Kawamura, Seiko; Kambara, Wataru*

EPJ Web of Conferences, 272, p.02012_1 - 02012_8, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202227202012

We will present some of attempts on AMATEAS, a cold-neutron chopper spectrometer at a pulsed source, to increase time-windows at a single-measurement condition. One of ways is that, by allowing interveined trajectories on the time-of-flight diagram, the usable width selectable for is can be increased. Based on our experiences, the conditions of pulse repetition rate multiplication based polychromatic measurements on chopper spectrometers at pulsed sources will be discussed. Optimization of wide-band polychromatic measurements and a generalized formulated condition will be proposed. Application of our idea to existing spectrometers and to the criteria design of an optimized chopper spectrometer will be also discussed with suggesting further possibility to improve efficiency by modifying the pulse shaping chopper.

Reactor physics experiment in a graphite moderation system for HTGR, 3

Fukaya, Yuji; Okita, Shoichiro; Kanda, Shun*; Goto, Masaki*; Nakajima, Kunihiro*; Sakon, Atsushi*; Sano, Tadafumi*; Hashimoto, Kengo*; Takahashi, Yoshiyuki*; Unesaki, Hironobu*

KURNS Progress Report 2021, P. 101, 2022/07

https://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/PUB/report/PR/ProgRep2021/ProgRep2021.html

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) started the Research and Development (R&D) to improve nuclear prediction techniques for High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs) in 2018. The objectives are to intro-duce the generalized bias factor method to avoid full mock-up experiment for the first commercial HTGR and to improve neutron instrumentation system by virtue of the particular characteristics due to a graphite moderation system. For this end, we composed B7/4"G2/8"p8EU(3)+3/8"p38EU in the B-rack of Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA) in 2021.

Breakdown of linear spin-wave theory and existence of spinon bound states in the frustrated kagome-lattice antiferromagnet

Mattan, K.*; Ono, Toshio*; Kawamura, Seiko; Nakajima, Kenji; Nambu, Yusuke*; Sato, Taku*

Physical Review B, 105(13), p.134403_1 - 134403_8, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.134403

Spin dynamics of the spin-1/2 kagome-lattice antiferromagnet CsCuSnF was studied using high-resolution, time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering. The flat mode, a characteristic of the frustrated kagome antiferromagnet, and the low-energy dispersive mode, which is dominated by magnons, can be well described by the linear spin-wave theory. However, the theory fails to describe three weakly dispersive modes between 9 and 14 meV. These modes could be attributed to two-spinon bound states, which decay into free spinons away from the zone center and at a high temperature, giving rise to continuum scattering.

Mictomagnetism and suppressed thermal conduction of the prototype high-entropy alloy CrMnFeCoNi

Yang, J.*; Ren, W.*; Zhao, X.*; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Miao, P.*; Nakajima, Kenji; Li, B.*; Zhang, Z.*

Journal of Materials Science & Technology, 99, p.55 - 60, 2022/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2021.04.077

High-entropy alloys are characteristic of extensive atomic occupational disorder on high-symmetric lattices, differing from traditional alloys. Here, we investigate magnetic and thermal transport properties of the prototype face-centered-cubic high-entropy alloy CrMnFeCoNi by combining physical properties measurements and neutron scattering. Direct-current (dc) and alternating-current (ac) magnetizations measurements indicate a mictomagnetic behavior with coexisting antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interactions in the entire temperature region and three anomalies are found at about 80, 50, and 20 K, which are related to the paramagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition, the antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition, and the spin freezing, respectively. The electrical and thermal conductivities are significantly reduced compared to Ni and the temperature dependence of lattice thermal conductivity exhibits a glass-like plateau. Inelastic neutron scattering measurements suggest weak anharmonicity so that the thermal transport is expected to be dominated by the defect scattering.

Experimental analysis on dynamics of liquid molecules adjacent to particles in nanofluids

Hashimoto, Shunsuke*; Nakajima, Kenji; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Kamazawa, Kazuya*; Shibata, Kaoru; Yamada, Takeshi*

Journal of Molecular Liquids, 342, p.117580_1 - 117580_8, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2021.117580

Quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) and pulsed-field-gradient nuclear magnetic resonance (PFGNMR) analyses of a nanofluid composed of silicon dioxide (SiO) nanoparticles and a base fluid of ethylene glycol aqueous solution were performed. The aim was to elucidate the mechanism increase in the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid above its theoretical value. The obtained experimental results indicate that SiO particles may decrease the self-diffusion coefficient of the liquid molecules in the ethylene glycol aqueous solution because of their highly restricted motion around these nanoparticles. At a constant temperature, the thermal conductivity increases as the self-diffusion coefficient of the liquid molecules decreases in the SiO nanofluids.

Dimensional reduction by geometrical frustration in a cubic antiferromagnet composed of tetrahedral clusters

Okuma, Ryutaro*; Kofu, Maiko; Asai, Shinichiro*; Avdeev, M.*; Koda, Akihiro*; Okabe, Hirotaka*; Hiraishi, Masatoshi*; Takeshita, Soshi*; Kojima, Kenji*; Kadono, Ryosuke*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 12, p.4382_1 - 4382_7, 2021/07

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24636-1

Mode distribution analysis for superionic melt of CuI by coherent quasielastic neutron scattering

Kawakita, Yukinobu; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Tahara, Shuta*; Nakamura, Mitsutaka; Inamura, Yasuhiro; Maruyama, Kenji*; Yamauchi, Yasuhiro*; Kawamura, Seiko; Nakajima, Kenji

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 33, p.011071_1 - 011071_6, 2021/03

BB2019-1144.pdf:0.7MB

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.33.011071

CuI is a well-known superionic conductor in a high temperature solid phase where the mobile cations migrate between interstitial sites in the f.c.c. sublattice formed by iodine ions. Even in the molten state, it shows several features suggesting collective or cooperative ionic motion. MD results show that Cu diffuses much faster than I. The Cu-Cu partial structure factor have a FSDP which indicates a medium-range ordering of Cu ions. Moreover the Cu-Cu partial pair distribution deeply penetrates into the nearest neighboring Cu-I shell. To reveal origin such anomalous behaviors of molten CuI, we performed quaiselastic neutron scattering (QENS) by the disk-chopper spectrometer AMATERAS at MLF, J-PARC. To interpret the total dynamic structure factor obtained from coherent QENS, the mode distribution analysis was applied. It is found that the motion of iodine is a kind of fluctuating within an almost local area while Cu ions diffuse much faster than iodine ions.

Sequence-dependent hydration water dynamics of dodecameric DNA

Nakagawa, Hiroshi; Yonetani, Yoshiteru*; Nakajima, Kenji; Kawamura, Seiko; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Inamura, Yasuhiro; Kataoka, Mikio*; Kono, Hidetoshi*

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 33, p.011101_1 - 011101_6, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.33.011101

Hydration water dynamics were measured by quasi-elastic neutron scattering with HnO/DO contrast for two DNA dodecamers, 5'CGCGCGCG'3 and 5'CGCGCGCG'3, which have been computationally shown to be structurally rigid and flexible, respectively. The dynamical transitions of the hydration water as well as DNA were observed for both sequences at approximately 240 K. Above the transition temperature, the mean square displacements of the hydration water for the rigid sequence were smaller than those for the flexible one. Furthermore, the relaxation time of the hydration water was longer in the rigid DNA than in the flexible DNA. We suggest that hydration water dynamics on the picosecond timescale are associated with sequence-dependent deformability of DNA.

Relevance of hydrogen bonded associates to the transport properties and nanoscale dynamics of liquid and supercooled 2-propanol

Zhai, Y.*; Luo, P.*; Nagao, Michihiro*; Nakajima, Kenji; Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Kawakita, Yukinobu; Kienzle, P. A.*; Z, Y.*; Faraone, A.*

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 23(12), p.7220 - 7232, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.1039/d0cp05481j

Reactor physics experiment in a graphite-moderation system for HTGR

Fukaya, Yuji; Goto, Minoru; Nakagawa, Shigeaki; Nakajima, Kunihiro*; Takahashi, Kazuki*; Sakon, Atsushi*; Sano, Tadafumi*; Hashimoto, Kengo*

EPJ Web of Conferences, 247, p.09017_1 - 09017_8, 2021/02

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202124709017

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) started the Research and Development (R&D) to improve nuclear prediction techniques for High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs). The objectives are to introduce a generalized bias factor method to avoid full mock-up experiment for the first commercial HTGR and to introduce reactor noise analysis to High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) experiment to observe subcriticality. To achieve the objectives, the reactor core of graphite-moderation system named B7/4"G2/8"p8EUNU+3/8"p38EU(1) was newly composed in the B-rack of Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA). The core is composed of the fuel assembly, driver fuel assembly, graphite reflector, and polyethylene reflector. The fuel assembly is composed of enriched uranium plate, natural uranium plate and graphite plates to realize the average fuel enrichment of HTTR and it's spectrum. However, driver fuel assembly is necessary to achieve the criticality with the small-sized core. The core plays a role of the reference core of the bias factor method, and the reactor noise was measured to develop the noise analysis scheme. In this study, the overview of the criticality experiments is reported. The reactor configuration with graphite moderation system is rare case in the KUCA experiments, and this experiment is expected to contribute not only for an HTGR development but also for other types of a reactor in the graphite moderation system such as a molten salt reactor development.