Benchmark study of PHITS for various projectiles and observables using SINBAD

Ogawa, Tatsuhiko; Labonnote, N.*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 567, p.165791_1 - 165791_20, 2025/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2025.165791

The general-purpose particle and heavy ion transport code system, PHITS, developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, was validated against the SINBAD, an internationally recognized benchmark experiment archive for radiation shielding. Unlike the previous PHITS benchmark against SINBAD, which primarily focused on shielding experiments for proton accelerators, this study conducted benchmarking for double-differential neutron yields, activation, residual dose, and microdosimetric quantities induced by protons, electrons, ions, and pions. This allowed for the use of models and databases not previously employed in validation studies, leading to the discovery of previously overlooked issues. While PHITS calculations generally agreed with experimental data within a factor of two, a detailed comparison revealed the need for improvements in several areas. These include: the inability of the high-energy hadron cascade model to calculate the angular momentum of residual nuclei, the underestimation of neutrons below 100 MeV in pion-induced reactions by the same model, the underestimation of proton-rich nuclei by the evaporation model, and the underestimation of high-energy secondary neutrons by the heavy-ion reaction model. These findings will be used as guidelines for future improvements to PHITS.

Experimental studies on spatial resolution of a delay-line current-biased kinetic inductance detector

Vu, TheDang*; Shishido, Hiroaki*; Aizawa, Kazuya; Oku, Takayuki; Oikawa, Kenichi; Harada, Masahide; Kojima, Kenji M*; Miyajima, Shigeyuki*; Soyama, Kazuhiko; Koyama, Tomio*; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 1075, p.170425_1 - 170425_9, 2025/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2025.170425

A Benchmark for Monte Carlo simulation of photoneutron fields from electron accelerators

Sari, A.*; Meleshenkovskii, I.*; Ogawa, Tatsuhiko; Tran, K.-T.*; Jinaphanh, A.*; Jouanne, C.*; Zoia, A.*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 1072, p.170168_1 - 170168_17, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2024.170168

Electron accelerators cover a wide range of applications, from nuclear waste package assay and security-related tasks to radiation therapy. High-energy photons produced by electron Bremsstrahlung radiation might induce photonuclear reactions emitting secondary neutrons. In this paper, we perform a two-stage benchmark for Monte Carlo simulation of photoneutron fields from electron accelerators operating in the 4-20 MeV range. On the one hand, we benchmark three independently developed Monte Carlo codes, i.e., MCNP, TRIPOLI-4; and PHITS, using ENDF7u photonuclear data from the ENDF/B-VII.1 library. On the other hand, we benchmark two photonuclear data sub-libraries, i.e., ENDF7u and JENDL-5, as well as nuclear reaction models, using the PHITS code. Errors in ENDF7u for W-184 and Ta-181 cause unphysical shapes of the photoneutron energy spectra with the three codes. Questionable behaviors are also found with JENDL-5, which calls for further examinations in this recently released library. For the cases of heavy water and beryllium, the photoneutron energy spectra obtained with MCNP6 is invalidated. We identified that the problem stems from wrong treatment of the reference frame in using the ACE data files by MCNP and previous versions of PHITS. Results obtained for tungsten and tantalum show that photoneutrons are overall emitted in an isotropic manner. However, results obtained for heavy water and beryllium display different tendencies. This investigation should help Monte Carlo code users to refine the current validity domain of the latest releases of MCNP6, PHITS and TRIPOLI-4 for the simulation of photoneutrons.

Monte Carlo and experimental assessment of the optimal geometry of the source and collimator for a table-top NRTA system for small nuclear material measurement

Guembou Shouop, C. J.; Tsuchiya, Harufumi

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 1072, p.170189_1 - 170189_14, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2024.170189

Evaluation of the performance of event reconstruction algorithms in the JSNS experiment using a Cf calibration source

Lee, D. H.*; Dodo, Taku; Haga, Katsuhiro; Harada, Masahide; Hasegawa, Shoichi; Kasugai, Yoshimi; Kinoshita, Hidetaka; Masuda, Shiho; Meigo, Shinichiro; Sakai, Kenji; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 1072, p.170216_1 - 170216_6, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2025.170216

Near-infrared study of radiation damage in ion-irradiated cerium dioxide and cerium-gadolinium dioxide

Costantini, J.-M.*; Guillaumet, M.*; Lelong, G.*; Ishikawa, Norito; Seo, P.*; Yasuda, Kazuhiro*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 558, p.165567_1 - 165567_6, 2025/01

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2024.165567

Radiation damage is studied in ion-irradiated sintered CeO and (Ce, Gd)O samples. Near Infra-red (NIR) spectra measurements were carried out by using the diffuse reflectivity mode for all of these sintered samples. Samples were irradiated with 100-MeV Kr, 200-MeV Xe, and 36-MeV W ions. Four broad absorption bands centered at 3700, 4100, 6000, and 7600 cm (i.e. 0.46, 0.51, 0.74, and 0.94 eV) are deduced from fits of the FTIR spectra for the ion-irradiated CeO and (Ce, Gd)O samples accompanied by a change in color from ivory to green. No such bands are recorded for the virgin (Ce, Gd)O samples with 5, 10, and 15 mol GdO with an increasing amount of oxygen vacancies. Absorption bands are tentatively assigned to electronic transitions involving cerium vacancy levels in the band gap, which has been also observed under high-energy electron irradiation.

Development of a forward Monte Carlo based weight-window generator using the history-counter function in PHITS

Sato, Tatsuhiko; Hashimoto, Shintaro; Mrquez Damin, J. I.*; Niita, Koji*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 557, p.165535_1 - 165535_8, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2024.165535

In-situ measurement of radiation driven back-conversion from para to ortho liquid hydrogen state in cold moderators at J-PARC

Teshigawara, Makoto; Lee, Y.*; Tatsumoto, Hideki*; Hartl, M.*; Aso, Tomokazu; Iverson, E. B.*; Ariyoshi, Gen; Ikeda, Yujiro*; Hasegawa, Takumi*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 557, p.165534_1 - 165534_10, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2024.165534

At Japanese Spallation Neutron Source in J-PARC, the para-hydrogen fraction was measured by using Raman spectroscopy in-situ for an integrated beam power of 9.4 MWh at 1 MW operation, to evaluate the functionality of the ferric oxyhydroxide catalyst. This result showed that full functionality of the catalyst was retained up to the 1 MW operation. We attempted to study the effect of neutron scattering driven para to ortho-hydrogen back-conversion rate in the absence of the catalyst effect with a bypass line without catalyst. The measured increase of ortho-hydrogen fraction was 0.44% for an integrated beam power of 2.4 MWh at 500 kW operation, however, which was considered to be due to not only to neutron collisions in cold moderators but also to the high ortho-hydrogen fraction of initially static liquid hydrogen in the bypass line and passive exudation of quasi-static hydrogen in the catalyst vessel to the main loop.

Using X-ray absorption near edge structure to evaluate adsorption properties of rare earths and nitrogen by difference of their interactions

Minowa, Kazuki*; Watanabe, So; Nakase, Masahiko*; Takahatake, Yoko; Miyazaki, Yasunori; Ban, Yasutoshi; Matsuura, Haruaki*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 556, p.165496_1 - 165496_6, 2024/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2024.165496

In this study, X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectral analysis and column experiments were used to verify the selectivity of rare earth (RE) ions by alkyl diamide amine (ADAAM) adsorbent. In addition, the interactions between the N atoms of ADAAM and RE ions were evaluated to determine whether any of the RE ions are a valid simulant for developing a mutual separation process for minor actinides (MAs) in highly radioactive liquid waste. It was confirmed that La and Ce interacted with the amine N atom of ADAAM and they showed a peak shift of the N-K edge XANES spectrum; this finding suggested that a soft interaction is an essential factor influencing ion selectivity. Therefore, the selection factor of RE ions by ADAAM adsorbent was similar to that of MAs. It was concluded that RE ions are reasonable species to simulate MAs.

Ion beam induced luminescence of lanthanide complexes in organic solvents irradiated by hydrogen and argon ion beams

Nakahara, Masaumi; Watanabe, So; Ishii, Yasuyuki*; Yamagata, Ryohei*; Yuri, Yosuke*; Yuyama, Takahiro*; Ishizaka, Tomohisa*; Koka, Masashi*; Yamada, Naoto*; Hagura, Naoto*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 554, p.165449_1 - 165449_5, 2024/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2024.165449

Ion beam induced luminescence analysis of lanthanide complexes in the organic solvents for minor actinides recovery process was carried out to investigate the structures of complexes. In this study, hydrogen ion beam obtained from the single-ended accelerator and argon ion beam obtained from the azimuthally varying field cyclotron were used in Takasaki Ion Accelerators for Advanced Radiation Application in National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology. In the experiments, ion beam induced luminescence spectra of lanthanide complexes in the organic solvents were measured, and the relationship between the obtained spectra and the structures of complexes was studied.