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Efficiencies of nonlinear optical-to-terahertz (THz) conversion below one percent remain a limiting factor for applications of multicycle THz radiation like THz-driven acceleration and inspired the use of multi-line pump spectra. To overcome the difficulty of phase stabilization of multiple narrowband sources required by the multi-line approach, we exploit its temporal analog, i.e., regular pulse trains with THz repetition rate, in which the THz waves generated by rectifying the individual pulses add coherently. The optical setup producing the pulse trains consists of motorized interferometers and enables precise control over the pulse train parameters like pulse spacing and amplitude. It is operated with a laser providing 400 fs pulses and energies of up to 110 mJ, which is the highest yet attempted for a pulse-train-type experiment. Opposed to earlier work, pulse division is done after amplification making the system more flexible in terms of tuning the pulse number. We present initial results of an experimental campaign of multicycle THz generation in custom periodically-poled crystals with large-apertures up to 10x20 mm(2). The available pump energy allows filling these apertures at high fluences, promising increased THz yields. We investigate the dependence of the conversion efficiency on the single pulse duration and aim to find the optimum pulse number for different crystal lengths to determine the efficiency limitations in a regime avoiding laser-induced damage. Since crystal length and pulse number define the bandwidth of the THz pulses, this work demonstrates a path to an optimized THz source tunable to different requirements of applications., QC 20240617

This chapter develops theoretical techniques to describe absorption and emission spectra, using concepts introduced in Chap. 72, and density matrix methods from Chap. 7. The simplest cases are treated, compatible with the physics involved, and more realistic applications are referred to in other chapters. Vector notation is not used, but it can be inserted as required. Only steady-state spectroscopy is covered; for time-resolved transient techniques see Chap. 77. Laser technology has greatly expanded the potential of atomic and molecular spectroscopy, but the same techniques for describing the interaction of light with matter also apply to the traditional arc lamps and flash discharges, and the more recent synchrotron radiation sources., QC 20230725

This paper presents a first demonstration of range-resolved differential absorption LIDAR (DIAL) measurements of the water vapor main isotopologue H216O and the less abundant semi-heavy water isotopologue HD16O with the aim of determining the isotopic ratio. The presented Water Vapor and Isotope Lidar (WaVIL) instrument is based on a parametric laser source emitting nanosecond pulses at 1.98 mu m and a direct-detection receiver utilizing a commercial InGaAs PIN photodiode. Vertical profiles of H216O and HD16O were acquired in the planetary boundary layer in the suburban Paris region up to a range of 1.5 km. For time averaging over 25 min, the achieved precision in the retrieved water vapor mixing ratio is 0.1 g kg-1 (2.5% relative error) at 0.4 km above ground level (a.g.l.) and 0.6 g kg-1 (20%) at 1 km a.g.l. for 150 m range bins along the LIDAR line of sight. For HD16O, weaker absorption has to be balanced with coarser vertical resolution (600 m range bins) in order to achieve similar relative precision. From the DIAL measurements of H216O and HD16O, the isotopic abundance delta D was estimated as -51%0 at 0.4 km above the ground and -119%0 in the upper part of the boundary layer at 1.3 km a.g.l. Random and systematic errors are discussed in the form of an error budget, which shows that further instrumental improvements are required on the challenging path towards DIAL-profiling of the isotopic abundance with range resolution and precision suitable for water cycle studies., QC 20230227

Andreev-Bashkin drag plays a very important role in multiple areas such as superfluid mixtures, super-conductors, and dense nuclear matter. Here we point out that the drag phenomenon can be also important in the physics of solitons, ubiquitous objects arising in a wide array of fields ranging from tsunami waves and fiber-optic communication to biological systems. So far, fruitful studies have been conducted in ultracold atomic systems where nontrivial soliton dynamics occurred due to intercomponent density-density interaction. In this work we show that current-current coupling between components (Andreev-Bashkin drag) can lead to a substantially different kind of effect, unsupported by density-density interactions, such as a drag-induced dark soliton generation. This also points out that soliton dynamics can be used as a tool to experimentally study the dissipationless drag effect., QC 20221128

We propose a new scheme of quasi-phase matching based on the negative first-order of the spatial modulation of the sign of the second-order optical nonlinearity. The experimental validation is done in a periodically-poled Rubidium-doped KTiOPO4 crystal., QC 20210923

Feasibility studies were performed to investigate minor actinides (MAs) transmutation in a 700MWth lead-cooled fast reactor through SERPENT Monte Carlo code. A mixture of nitrides of MAs, plutonium and depleted uranium was used. The mix was based on the spent fuel of Light Water Reactors (LWRs) with burnup of 33GWd/tHM and cooling for 10 years. A simple fuel method of 83at.% used uranium and 17at.% transuranic waste(TRU) with no separation of plutonium from americium was carried out to burn about 34kg MAs in one 5-year fuel cycle, which indicates that the lead-cooled fast reactor has a great potential to transmute MAs. Different MA contents from 0at.% up to 12at.% in fuel, with the initial plutonium loading mass retained were calculated to investigate the effects on transmutation and core performance. The results show that with the addition of MA loading the initial effective multiplication factor decreases but the burnup reactivity swing is lower. The fuel burnup is prolonged to allow more MA nuclides to burn. It is apparent that increasing MA content can improve the MA transmutation performance. Closer inspection shows that the reduction of MA is mainly attributed to the reduction of neptunium and americium, in contrast, the curium inventory increases. It is known that the MA loading amount in fast reactor is limited by the reactor safety performance degradation. This study focuses on the impact of MA on the effective delayed neutron fraction, which is an important parameter for reactor control operation. It is found that the addition of MAs has a negative influence on the effective delayed neutron fraction, decreasing it approximately linearly to their addition. In summary, efficient MA transmutation can be in the lead-cooled faster reactor achieved even when the effect of MA addition on safety performance is accounted for., QC 20200918

We present a simple turn-key fiber amplifier system which allows for a narrow wavelength tunability with a stable level of output power. This system was used in continuous-wave differential absorption light detection and ranging (CW-DIAL) [1] to measure the atmospheric CO2-concentration in Lund. Preliminary experimental results are also presented., QC 20181107

The seniority symmetry is known to be partially conserved in two special cases in the (9/2)(4) system, which can lead to striking features in the corresponding structure and electromagnetic transition properties. However, it is still quite difficult to derive those kind of solvable states, in general, especially towards higher- j orbits. We have developed a novel and effective way to confront this challenge by starting from the m scheme and making use of the angular momentum projection method. It also allows us to explore another special family of seniority conserving states in the midshell besides the specific case of the (9/2)(4) configuration. Moreover, we have studied systemically all states in single- j systems up to j = 15/2 and derived the analytic expressions for the eigenvalues of all solvable states with a focus on those in j = 9/2 and j = 11/2. Such studies can also be useful for the experimental search of relevant states and for the understanding of their electromagnetic transition properties., QC 20190118

We investigate CO2 laser processing of SiGe-core glass fibers, and show that homogeneous, low optical loss cores can be made. Coaxial Ge-rich centers within the semiconductor cores can also be fabricated., QC 20181026

We report on a longwave infrared lidar, tailored for detection of chemical warfare agents in the gaseous phase. The emitter is based on single-frequency 2 μm parametric oscillator/amplifier systems followed by a ZnGeP2 downconversion stage., QC 20181106

Mirrorless optical parametric oscillators (MOPOs) are very attractive parametric devices that rely on the nonlinear interaction of counter-propagating photons to inherently establish distributed feedback, without the use of external mirrors or surface coatings. These devices offer unique spectral and coherence properties that will benefit a large variety of applications ranging from spectroscopy to quantum communications. The major obstacle in exploiting their full potential is ascribed to the difficulty in engineering a nonlinear material in which the generation of counter-propagating waves can be phase matched. Here we present a reliable and consistent technique for fabrication of highly-efficient sub-micrometer periodically poled Rb-doped KTiOPO4. We experimentally demonstrate the first cascaded counter-propagating interactions in which the generated forward signal serves as a pump for a secondary MOPO process, reaching pump depletion larger than 60%. The cascaded process exemplifies the high efficiency of our nonlinear photonic structures. Our domain-engineering technique paves the way to realize counter-propagating schemes and devices that have been deemed unfeasible until now., QC 20170602

A laser-induced damage study is performed on blank, uncoated Rb:KTiOPO4 (RKTP) samples at 1.03 mu m with two different pulse durations of similar to 0.3 and similar to 1.0 ps and a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The effect of the sample temperature is also considered., QC 20170509

High-temperature stable fiber Bragg gratings will be reviewed with an emphasis on recent material studies using Chemical Composition gratings., QC 20201229

QC 20200901

Photofragmentation of thymine and 5-bromouracil into cation and neutral fragments following the core ionization by soft x-rays using photoelectron-photoion-photoion coincidence technique has been studied. The fragment ion mass spectra were recorded in coincidence with the C 1s photoelectron spectra. In the case of thymine, deuterated samples were used to identify fragments. Deuteration or bromination allowed us to study not only the main fragmentation channels of these pyrimidine bases, but also to investigate if replacement of an exocyclic functional group affects molecular fragmentation. We found that the dominant fragmentation channels involve only one starting geometry, and the base ring and other bond cleavages, leading to the detected fragments, are essentially identical between thymine and 5-bromouracil. In addition, the relative intensities of the strongest fragmentation channels were determined and compared with calculated appearance energies using ab initio unrestricted Hartree-Fock theory. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3505140], QC 20110222

We show that in complete agreement with classical mechanics, the dynamics of any quantum mechanical wave packet in a linear gravitational potential involves the gravitational and the inertial mass only as their ratio. In contrast, the spatial modulation of the corresponding energy wave function is determined by the third root of the product of the two masses. Moreover, the discrete energy spectrum of a particle constrained in its motion by a linear gravitational potential and an infinitely steep wall depends on the inertial as well as the gravitational mass with different fractional powers. This feature might open a new avenue in quantum tests of the universality of free fall., QC 20110208

We report a 236 nm light source with 20 mW of average power based on critically phase-matched second-harmonic generation in a beta-barium borate crystal at room temperature. The fundamental light source was a passively Q-switched 946 nm Nd: YAG laser tunable from 10-38 kHz and with a pulse length of 16 ns. In the generation of 473 nm light, periodically poled KTP and BiBO was compared in terms of conversion efficiency and stability., Uppdaterad från submitted till published: 20100903QC 20100903

Picosecond blue-light-induced infrared absorption is investigated in bulk and periodically poled ferroelectrics known to have high photorefractive resistance (KTiOPO4, MgO-doped congruent LiNbO3, MgO-doped stoichiometric LiNbO3, MgO-doped stoichiometric LiTaO3, and KNbO3). KNbO3 and MgO-doped congruent and stoichiometric LiNbO3 show the lowest susceptibility to induced absorption. Periodic poling slightly increases the susceptibility to the induced absorption in all materials but most noticeably in KTiOPO4, MgO-doped stoichiometric LiTaO3, and KNbO3. Different dynamics of induced absorption are investigated. Relatively high thresholds for induced absorption were observed in MgO-doped stoichiometric LiTaO3 and KNbO3. By increasing the peak power intensity of blue light, the induced absorption for LiNbO3, KTiOPO4, and KNbO3 are saturated, while in MgO-doped stoichiometric LiTaO3, the induced absorption increases almost linearly with the blue peak intensity. The low susceptibility to induced absorption observed in KNbO3 corroborates well with the earlier proposed existence of very shallow traps close to the valence band., QC 20100830

We report on a Nd:YVO4 laser mode-locked with a hybrid active and passive modulator consisting of a single partially poled KTP crystal. The periodically poled part provides negative cascaded Kerr-lensing, which together with intracavity soft and hard apertures gives passive modulation. Active phase modulation comes from the electro-optic effect by applying a voltage over the unpoled part of the crystal. The active modulation provides pulse lengths of about 95 ps, which initiate pulse shortening and self-sustained passive mode-locking by the cascaded Kerr effect. The repetition rate of the laser was 94 MHz and the output power was 350 mW, with a bandwidth of 0.235 nm and pulse lengths down to 6.9 ps., QC 20100830

This paper considers a two-level atom interacting with two cavity modes with equal frequencies. Applying a unitary transformation, the system reduces to the analytically solvable Jaynes-Cummings model. For some particular field states, coherent and squeezed states, the transformation between the two bare bases, related by the unitary transformation, becomes particularly simple. It is shown how to generate (the highly non-classical) entangled coherent states of the two modes, both in the zero and large detuning cases. An advantage of the zero detuning case is that the preparation is deterministic and no atomic measurement is needed. For the large detuning situation, a measurement is required, leaving the field in either of two orthogonal entangled coherent states., Uppdaterad från submitted til published: 20101026.QC 20101026

In this paper I study the dynamics of a two-level atom interacting with a standing-wave field. When the atom is subjected to a weak linear force, the problem can be turned into a time-dependent one, and the evolution is understood from the band structure of the spectrum. The presence of level crossings in the spectrum gives rise to Bloch oscillations of the atomic motion. Here I investigate the effects of the atom-field detuning parameter. A variety of different level crossings are obtained by changing the magnitude of the detuning, and the behavior of the atomic motion is strongly affected due to this. I also consider the situation in which the detuning is oscillating in time, and its impact on the atomic motion. Wave-packet simulations of the full problem are treated numerically and the results are compared with analytical solutions given by the standard Landau-Zener and the three-level Landau-Zener models., QC 20101026

Exploiting the motional Stark effect (MSE) in the low magnetic fields of spherical tokamaks such as MAST is complicated by the Doppler smearing of the relatively closely spaced Stark components. Extensive modeling of MSE spectra and the subsequent polarized fraction (similar to 20%) of spectrally filtered light and signal to noice ratios have been performed taking account of real experimental conditions including neutral beam parameters, port sizes, optical losses, filter characteristics, etc. A design is selected which uses high throughput interference filters (0.1 nm bandpass ) for separation of the spectral components. An accuracy of similar to 0.5 degrees S compared with typically 15 degrees is estimated for field angle measurements. The design allows for early implementation, starting with a pilot two chord system, and for an economic expansion to a multiplicity of chords. Matching the Doppler shifted D-alpha from the beam neutrals will be accomplished by a combination of filter selection and fine-tuning of the beam voltage. Avoiding filter tuning in the design greatly simplifies the diagnostic. Calibration results of the diagnostic support the calculations., QC 20100907.

The paper present results of Monte Carlo modeling of an Experimental Accelerator Driven System (ADS), which employs a subcritical assembly and a 660 MeV proton accelerator operating at the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. The mix of oxides PuO2 + UO2 MOX fuel designed for the reactor will be adopted for the core of the assembly. The design of the experimental subcritical assembly in Dubna (SAD) is based on the core with a nominal unit capacity of 30 kW (thermal). This corresponds to the multiplication coefficient K-eff = 0.95 and the accelerator beam power of I kW. A subcritical assembly has been modeled in order to increase power of this experimental set up. Different options for the target and fuel elements have been considered., QC 20100525 QC 20111004. Conference: 7th International Conference on Accelerator Applications. Venice, ITALY. AUG 28-SEP 01, 2005

The Balmer emission from atomic hydrogen has been recorded across the resonances at the oxygen K edge of the water molecule using synchrotron radiation excitation. The emission is observed to be strongest at excitations to Rydberg resonances. The observations are interpreted using a qualitative model for the dynamics of the core-to-Rydberg excited molecule. The model links the quantum state of the core-excited water molecule via resonant Auger decay and subsequent dissociation to the state of the fluorescing hydrogen atom., QC 20100910

The gas turbine-modular helium reactor coupled to the deep burn in-core fuel management strategy offers the extraordinary capability to incinerate over 50% of the initial inventory of fissile material. This extraordinary feature, coming from an advanced and well tested fuel element design, which takes advantage of the TRISO particles technology, is maintained while the reactor is loaded with the most different types of fuels. In the present work, we assumed the reactor operating at the equilibrium of the fuel composition, obtained by a 6 years irradiation of light water reactor waste, and we investigated the effects of the introduction of the burnable poison and the control rods; we equipped the core with all the three types of control rods: operational, startup and shutdown ones. We employed as burnable poison natural erbium, due to the Er-167 increasing neutron capture microscopic cross-section in the energy range where the neutron spectrum exhibits the thermal peak; in addition, we utilized boron carbide, with 90% enrichment in 1013, as the absorption material of the control rods. Concerning the burnable poison studies, we focused on the k(eff) value, the Er-167 mass during burnup, the influence of modifying the radius of the BISO particles kernel and the fuel and moderator coefficients of temperature. Concerning the control rods studies, we investigated the reactivity worth, the changes in the neutron flux profile due to a partial insertion, the influence of modifying the radius of the BISO particles kernel and the beta(eff), at the beginning of the operation, QC 20100922

Photodissociation of molecular hydrogen has been investigated by means of fluorescence spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation. Balmer-alpha emission from atomic hydrogen photofragments was collected in the 20-55 eV excitation energy range. Experimental data are interpreted in terms of excitation and fragmentation of neutral doubly excited states and excited ionic states with the aid of recent theoretical model calculation., QC 20100910

Measurements and simulations of the signal-difference-to-noise ratio (SDNR) and average glandular dose (AGD) have been performed on a photon counting full-field digital mammography system to determine the optimal operating conditions. Several beam qualities were experimentally evaluated by using different combinations of tube voltage, added filters and thickness of BR12 with a tungsten target x-ray tube. The SDNR and AGD were also calculated theoretically for an extended number of operating conditions and a more accurate breast model. As figure of merit for each operating condition, a spectral quantum efficiency (SQE) was calculated as the polychromatic SDNR squared over the optimal monochromatic SDNR squared at the same AGD. The theoretical model agreed within 4% relative the measured SDNR throughout the evaluated breast thickness (30-70 mm) and tube voltage range (26-38 kV). The optimization was performed with a constant SDNR-rate as compared to using a fixed filter thickness. The optimal combinations of tube voltage-filter material were: 32 kV-Ag, 34 kV-Cd, 36 kV-Sn for a breast thickness of 30, 50 and 70 mm respectively. These K-edge filter materials increased the SQE by less than 4% compared to the optimal Al filtration., QC 20111004

This paper describes a method for single exposure contrast-enhanced dual-energy imaging of tumors utilizing a scanned multi-slit system for digital mammography. This photon counting system employs an array of silicon strip detectors in an edge-on geometry. In the multi-slit setup, the line detectors and pre-collimator slits are aligned orthogonal to the scan direction. This geometry is advantageous to dual-energy imaging, since it allows differential filtering of the x-ray beam in the pre-collimator slits. A high-energy image is constructed from those lines where the filter material has been chosen to harden the x-ray beam and the low-energy image from the lines with a filter producing softer beams. Both images are obtained in the same scan, eliminating the need to change tube voltages and anode materials and minimizing the risk of motion artifacts. The method is illustrated on a purpose-built phantom and logarithmic subtraction of the images produces images essentially free of anatomical clutter with the contrast-enhanced targets clearly visible., QC 20111006

More than 27 mW of 492-nm power was generated in a compact design, using intra-cavity sum frequency mixing of a laser diode and a diode-pumped solid-state laser in a periodically-poled KTiOPO4 crystal., QC 20100903

We present highly efficient sum-frequency generation between two CWIR lasers using periodically poled KTP. The system is based on the 1064 and 1342 nm laser-lines of two Nd:YVO4 lasers. This is an all solid-state light source in the yellow-orange spectral range. The system is optimized in terms of efficiency as well as stability. We compare the performance of a singly and a doubly resonant system, and find that the stability of the singly resonant system is superior to that of the doubly resonant system. We find that the overall conversion efficiency of the single resonant system is higher than for the doubly resonant configuration., QC 20100903

A Fresnel-like X-ray lens can be constructed by a triangular array of identical prisms whose base corresponds to the 2 pi-shift length. Each column of prisms is progressively shifted from the optical axis by an arbitrary fraction of the prism height. Similarly to the multi-prism lens, quasi-parabolic profiles are formed by a superposition of straight-line segments. The resulting projected lens profile is approximately linear with a Fresnel-lens pattern superimposed on it to provide the focusing. This geometry exhibits a significantly larger effective aperture than conventional parabolic refractive lenses. Prototype lenses were fabricated by deep reactive ion etching of silicon. These one-dimensionally focusing lenses were tested at a synchrotron beamline and provided focal line-widths down to 1.4 mu m FWHM and an intensity gain of 39 at a photon energy of 13.4 keV. Fabrication imperfections gave rise to unwanted interference effects resulting in several intensity maxima in the focal plane. The presented design allows the focal length to be shortened without decreasing the feature size of the lens. Furthermore, this feature size does not limit the resolution as for real Fresnel optics., QC 20150727

The spectral and spatial properties of a non-collinear signal- and idler-resonant periodically poled KTiOPO4 optical parametric oscillator (OPO) have been investigated. The lower angular dispersion of the idler-resonant OPO allows for generation of up to two-times smaller spectral bandwidths at large non-collinear angles, and at the same time the beam quality improves considerably compared with the signal-resonant case. The overall efficiency reached 67% in both cases., QC 20100923

We show how to prepare a variety of cavity field states for multiple cavities. The state preparation technique used is related to the method of stimulated adiabatic Raman passage. The cavity modes are coupled by atoms, making it possible to transfer an arbitrary cavity field state from one cavity to another and also to prepare nontrivial cavity field states. In particular, we show how to prepare entangled states of two or more cavities, such as an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen state and a W state, as well as various entangled superpositions of coherent states in different cavities, including Schrodinger cat states. The theoretical considerations are supported by numerical simulations., QC 20101026

Periodic 90° domain structure with 18.6 μm periodicity was fabricated by applying a 200 V/mm electric field over (1̄01)-cut KNbO3 plate. The blue light generation by quasi-phase-matched frequency doubling in this periodic 90° domain structure is demonstrated. The 90° domain structure completely compensates for a Poynting vector walk-off of the second-harmonic beam. Moreover, these structures exhibit amphoteric Poynting vector refraction properties, i.e., the refraction can be negative or positive depending on the angle of incidence at the 90° domain boundary., QC 20100830

We consider propagation of a two-level atom coupled to one electromagnetic mode of a high-Q cavity. The atomic center-of-mass motion is treated quantum mechanically and we use a standing wave shape for the mode. The periodicity of the Hamiltonian leads to a spectrum consisting of bands and gaps, which is studied from a Floquet point of view. Based on the band theory, we introduce a set of effective mass parameters that approximately describe the effect of the cavity on the atomic motion, with the emphasis on one associated with the group velocity and on another one that coincides with the conventional effective mass. Propagation of initially Gaussian wave packets is also studied using numerical simulations and the mass parameters extracted thereof are compared with those predicted by the Floquet theory. Scattering and transmission of the wave packet against the cavity are further analyzed, and the constraints for the effective mass approach to be valid are discussed in detail., QC 20101026

The radiation fields and the effective dose at the Sub-critical Assembly in Dubna (SAD) have been studied with the Monte Carlo code MCNPX. The effective dose above the shielding, i.e. in the direction of the incident proton beam of 3.0 mu A, was found to be about 190 mu Sv h(-1). This value meets the dose limits according to Russian radiation protection regulations, provided that access to the rooms in this area is not allowed for working personnel during operation.By separating the radiation fields into a spallation- and a fission-induced part, it was shown that the neutrons with energy higher than 10MeV, originating exclusively from the proton-induced spallation reactions in the target, contribute for the entire part of the radiation fields and the effective dose at the top of the shielding. Consequently, the effective dose above the SAD reactor system is merely dependent on the proton beam properties and not on the reactivity of the core., QC 20101005

A study of polarization-switching characteristics under an applied electrical field at room temperature is presented for flux-grown KTiOPO4 and RbTiOPO4. By optimizing the experimental conditions, we determined the coercive field and the domain-switching time quantitatively by direct observation of the switching current. For both isomorphs, the inverse of the polarization-switching time, 1/t(s), follows an exponential dependence on the applied field E in low-field regime, and a linear dependence on E in the high-field regime. Domain morphology of KTiOPO4 based on selective etching reveals laminar structures elongated in the b crystallographic direction. An estimation of the domain-wall velocity shows that the domain speed in the polar direction is, at least, two orders of magnitude larger than in the a-b plane. The velocity along the b direction is similar to 30 times larger than along the a axis., QC 20100830

Conventionally, the effect of measurements on a quantum system is assumed to introduce decoherence, which renders the system classical- like. We consider here a microscopic meter, that is, an auxiliary essentially quantum system whose state is measured repeatedly, and show that it can be employed to induce transitions from classical states into inherently quantumlike states. The meter state is assumed to be lost in the environment and we derive a non- Markovian master equation for the dynamic system in the case of nondemolition coupling to the meter; this equation can be cast in the form of an (N-a)th- order differential equation in time, where N-a is the dimension of the meter basis. We apply the approach to a harmonic oscillator coupled to a spin-1/2 2 meter and demonstrate how it can be used to engineer effective Hamiltonian evolution, subject to decoherence induced by the projective meter measurements., QC 20110818

One of the major benefits of the Gas Turbine-Modular Helium Reactor is the capability to operate with several different types of fuel; either Light Water Reactors waste, military plutonium or thorium represent valid candidates as possible types of fuel. In the present studies, we performed a comparison of various nuclear data libraries by the Monte Carlo Continuous Energy Burnup Code MCB applied to the Gas Turbine-Modular Helium Reactor operating on a thorium fuel. A thorium fuel offers valuable attractive advantages: low fuel cost, high reduction of actinides production and the possibility to enable the reactor to act as a breeder of fuel by the neutron capture of fertile Th-232. We evaluated the possibility to mix thorium with small quantities, about 3% in atomic composition, of Pu-239, U-233 and U-235. The mass of thorium must be much larger than that one of plutonium or uranium because of the low capture cross section of thorium compared to the fission one of the fissile nuclides; at the same time, the quantity of the fissile isotopes must grant the criticality condition. These two simultaneous constraints force to load a huge mass of fuel in the reactor; consequently, we propose to allocate the fuel in TRISO particles with a large radius of the kernel. For each of the three different fuels we calculated the evolution of the fuel composition by the MCB code equipped with five different nuclear data libraries: JENDL-3.3, JENDL-3.2, JEFF-3, JEF-2.2 and ENDF/B., QC 20100922

Preliminary studies have been performed on operation of the gas turbine-modular helium reactor (GT-MHR) with a thorium based fuel. The major options for a thorium fuel are a mixture with light water reactors spent fuel, mixture with military plutonium or with with fissile isotopes of uranium. Consequently, we assumed three models of the fuel containing a mixture of thorium with 239Pu, 233U or 235U in TRISO particles with a different kernel radius keeping constant the packing fraction at the level of 37.5%, which corresponds to the current compacting process limit. In order to allow thorium to act as a breeder of fissile uranium and ensure conditions for a self-sustaining fission chain, the fresh fuel must contain a certain quantity of fissile isotope at beginning of life; we refer to the initial fissile nuclide as triggering isotope. The small capture cross-section of 232Th in the thermal neutron energy range, compared to the fission one of the common fissile isotopes (239Pu, 233U and 235U), requires a quantity of thorium 25-30 times greater than that one of the triggering isotope in order to equilibrate the reaction rates. At the same time, the amount of the triggering isotope must be enough to set the criticality condition of the reactor. These two conditions must be simultaneously satisfied. The necessity of a large mass of fuel forces to utilize TRISO particles with a large radius of the kernel, 300 μm. Moreover, in order to improve the neutron economics, a fuel cycle based on thorium requires a low capture to fission ratio of the triggering isotope. Amid the common fissile isotopes, 233U, 235U and 239Pu, we have found that only the uranium nuclides have shown to have the suitable neutronic features to enable the GT-MHR to work on a fuel based on thorium., QC 20100922