Marking actinides for separation; Resonance-enhanced multiphoton charge transfer in actinide complexes

Matsuda, Shohei; Yokoyama, Keiichi; Yaita, Tsuyoshi; Kobayashi, Toru; Kaneta, Yui; Simonnet, M.; Sekiguchi, Tetsuhiro; Honda, Mitsunori; Shimojo, Kojiro; Doi, Reisuke; et al.

Science Advances (Internet), 8(20), p.eabn1991_1 - eabn1991_11, 2022/05

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn1991

no abstracts in English

Design for detecting recycling muon after muon-catalyzed fusion reaction in solid hydrogen isotope target

Okutsu, Kenichi*; Yamashita, Takuma*; Kino, Yasushi*; Nakashima, Ryota*; Miyashita, Konan*; Yasuda, Kazuhiro*; Okada, Shinji*; Sato, Motoyasu*; Oka, Toshitaka; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; et al.

Fusion Engineering and Design, 170, p.112712_1 - 112712_4, 2021/09

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2021.112712

A muonic molecule which consists of two hydrogen isotope nuclei (deuteron (d) or tritium (t)) and a muon decays immediately via nuclear fusion and the muon will be released as a recycling muon, and start to find another hydrogen isotope nucleus. The reaction cycle continues until the muon ends up its lifetime of 2.2 s. Since the muon does not participate in the nuclear reaction, the reaction is so called a muon catalyzed fusion (CF). The recycling muon has a particular kinetic energy (KE) of the muon molecular orbital when the nuclear reaction occurs. Since the KE is based on the unified atom limit where distance between two nuclei is zero. A precise few-body calculation estimating KE distribution (KED) is also in progress, which could be compared with the experimental results. In the present work, we observed recycling muons after CF reaction.

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.

Report of summer holiday practical training 2019; Feasibility study on nuclear battery using HTTR core; Feasibility study for nuclear design, 2

Ishitsuka, Etsuo; Nakashima, Koki*; Nakagawa, Naoki*; Ho, H. Q.; Ishii, Toshiaki; Hamamoto, Shimpei; Takamatsu, Kuniyoshi; Kenzhina, I.*; Chikhray, Y.*; Matsuura, Hideaki*; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2020-008, 16 Pages, 2020/08

JAEA-Technology-2020-008.pdf:2.98MB

As a summer holiday practical training 2019, the feasibility study for nuclear design of a nuclear battery using HTTR core was carried out, and the U enrichment and burnable poison of the fuel, which enables continuous operation for 30 years with thermal power of 5 MW, were studied by the MVP-BURN. As a result, it is clear that a fuel with U enrichment of 12%, radius of burnable poison and natural boron concentration of 1.5 cm and 2wt% are required. As a next step, the downsizing of core will be studied.

Emergent spin-1 Haldane gap and ferroelectricity in a frustrated spin- ladder

Ueda, Hiroshi*; Onoda, Shigeki*; Yamaguchi, Yasuhiro*; Kimura, Tsuyoshi*; Yoshizawa, Daichi*; Morioka, Toshiaki*; Hagiwara, Masayuki*; Hagihara, Masato*; Soda, Minoru*; Masuda, Takatsugu*; et al.

Physical Review B, 101(14), p.140408_1 - 140408_6, 2020/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.101.140408

Intercomparison of numerical atmospheric dispersion prediction models for emergency response to emissions of radionuclides with limited source information in the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident

Iwasaki, Toshiki*; Sekiyama, Tsuyoshi*; Nakajima, Teruyuki*; Watanabe, Akira*; Suzuki, Yasushi*; Kondo, Hiroaki*; Morino, Yu*; Terada, Hiroaki; Nagai, Haruyasu; Takigawa, Masayuki*; et al.

Atmospheric Environment, 214, p.116830_1 - 116830_11, 2019/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2019.116830

The utilization of numerical atmospheric dispersion prediction (NDP) models for accidental discharge of radioactive substances was recommended by a working group of the Meteorological Society of Japan. This paper is to validate the recommendation through NDP model intercomparison in the accidental release from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011. Emission intensity is assumed to be constant during the whole forecast period for the worst-case scenario unless time sequence of emission is available. We expect to utilize forecasts of surface air contaminations for preventions of inhalations of radioactive substances, and column-integrated amounts for mitigation of radiation exposure associated with wet deposition. Although NDP forecasts have ensemble spread, they commonly figure out relative risk in space and time. They are of great benefit to disseminating effective warnings to public without failure. The multi-model ensemble technique may be effective to improve the reliability.

Background issues encountered by cold-neutron chopper spectrometer AMATERAS

Kikuchi, Tatsuya*; Nakajima, Kenji; Kawamura, Seiko; Inamura, Yasuhiro; Nakamura, Mitsutaka; Wakai, Daisuke*; Aoyama, Kazuhiro*; Iwahashi, Takaaki*; Kambara, Wataru*

Physica B; Condensed Matter, 564, p.45 - 53, 2019/07

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physb.2019.02.015

Details of the background, that is, unwanted signals accumulated by the data acquisition system of neutron instruments, observed by the cold-neutron chopper spectrometer AMATERAS installed at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility at J-PARC are reported. In the design phase of AMATERAS, we carefully considered the achievement of high signal-to-noise ratio, and possible countermeasures were implemented. Actually, recent scientific outputs from AMATERAS indicates that the spectrometer is one of excellent neutron instruments with low background. In spite of that, in nine years of AMATERAS operation, we have encountered unwanted signals due to various reasons, including gamma-rays emitted at materials on or near the beam line including the sample itself, scattered neutrons from the beam line devices, air scattering, electronic noise in data acquisition system, cosmic rays, T0 burst, and other unknown sources. In this report, we discuss the background observed by AMATERAS, especially in the conditions of without samples, comprehensively. The possible sources of these signals and the countermeasures considered against the above sources are discussed, which may be helpful to those who are engaged in other existing or planned neutron-scattering instruments.

Model intercomparison of atmospheric Cs from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident; Simulations based on identical input data

Sato, Yosuke*; Takigawa, Masayuki*; Sekiyama, Tsuyoshi*; Kajino, Mizuo*; Terada, Hiroaki; Nagai, Haruyasu; Kondo, Hiroaki*; Uchida, Junya*; Goto, Daisuke*; Qulo, D.*; et al.

Journal of Geophysical Research; Atmospheres, 123(20), p.11748 - 11765, 2018/10

https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029144

A model intercomparison of the atmospheric dispersion of Cs emitted following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident was conducted by 12 models to understand the behavior of Cs in the atmosphere. The same meteorological data, horizontal grid resolution, and an emission inventory were applied to all the models to focus on the model variability originating from the processes included in each model. The multi-model ensemble captured 40% of the observed Cs events, and the figure-of-merit in space for the total deposition of Cs exceeded 80. Our analyses indicated that the meteorological data were most critical for reproducing the Cs events. The results also revealed that the differences among the models were originated from the deposition and diffusion processes when the meteorological field was simulated well. However, the models with strong diffusion tended to overestimate the Cs concentrations.

Production and detection of fission-induced neutrons following fast neutron direct interrogation to various dry materials containing U

Sakoda, Akihiro; Nakatsuka, Yoshiaki; Ishimori, Yuu; Nakashima, Shinichi; Komeda, Masao; Ozu, Akira; Toh, Yosuke

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 55(6), p.605 - 613, 2018/06

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2017.1417175

For better nuclear material accountancy, we had developed a non-destructive assay system dedicated to uranium waste drums (JAWAS-N: JAEA Waste Assay System at Ningyo-toge). The system is based on a fast neutron direct interrogation (FNDI) method. To clarify the characteristics of the FNDI method and the performance of JAWAS-N, experimental and computational mock-up tests were carried out using various dry materials that contained known amounts of natural uranium. As a result, linearity between the die-away time () and the counts of fast neutrons attributed to U fission was confirmed experimentally and analytically. Moreover, the MCNP simulation was performed to discuss the radial and axial dependences of U fission probability, neutron detection efficiency, and sensitivity on uranium distributions in the drum. The simulation results agreed with the empirical results reported in a previous paper, providing valuable information on the practice of FNDI-based uranium determination. Furthermore, the nominal detection limits of natural uranium in JAWAS-N were estimated to be 15, 4, and 2 g for = 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 msec, respectively. The findings obtained here will contribute to the implementation of the FNDI method to assess the quantities of U in actual uranium waste drums.