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Title: Impact of Modular Total Absorption Spectrometer measurements of β decay of fission products on the decay heat and reactor ν ¯ e flux calculation

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [3];  [2];  [6]; ORCiD logo [3];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [3];  [6];  [6];  [2];  [6];  [6];  [6];  [9] more »;  [10] « less
  1. Univ. of Warsaw, Warsaw (Poland); Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  2. Univ. of Warsaw, Warsaw (Poland); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  4. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge, LA (United States)
  5. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  6. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  7. Univ. of Warsaw, Warsaw (Poland)
  8. Oak Ridge Associated Univ., Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  9. Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States)
  10. Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge, LA (United States)

Here, we report the results of a β-decay study of fission products 86Br, 89Kr, 89Rb, 90gsRb, 90mRb, 90Kr, 92Rb, 139Xe, and 142Cs performed with the Modular Total Absorption Spectrometer (MTAS) and on-line mass-separated ion beams. These radioactivities were assessed by the Nuclear Energy Agency as having high priority for decay heat analysis during a nuclear fuel cycle. We observe a substantial increase in β feeding to high excited states in all daughter isotopes in comparison to earlier data. This increases the average γ-ray energy emitted by the decay of fission fragments during the first 10 000 s after fission of 235U and 239Pu by approximately 2% and 1%, respectively, improving agreement between results of calculations and direct observations. New MTAS results reduce the reference reactor ¯νe flux used to analyze reactor ¯νe interaction with detector matter. The reduction determined by the ab initio method for the four nuclear fuel components, 235U, 238U, 239Pu, and 241Pu, amounts to 0.976, 0.986, 0.983, and 0.984, respectively.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; FG02-96ER40983; NA0002132; FG02-96ER40978; FG02-96ER41006; FG05-88ER40407
OSTI ID:
1492173
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1373799
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 119, Issue 5; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 25 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (5)

Total Absorption Spectroscopy journal April 2018
Review on the progress in nuclear fission—experimental methods and theoretical descriptions journal September 2018
β decay study of the Mn 66 Fe 66 Co 66 Ni 66 decay chain journal December 2018
Large Impact of the Decay of Niobium Isomers on the Reactor ν ¯ e Summation Calculations journal January 2019
First-forbidden transitions in the reactor anomaly text January 2019

Figures / Tables (6)