Mean-field description of heavy-ion scattering at low energies and fusion

The nuclear mean-field potential built up during the ^(12)C+^(12)C and ^(16)O+^(16)O collisions at low energies relevant for the carbon-and oxygen-burning processes is constructed within the double-folding model(DFM) using the realistic ground-state densities of^(12)C and^(16)O, and CDM3Yn density-dependent nucleon–nucleon(NN) interaction. The rearrangement term, indicated by the Hugenholtz–van Hove theorem for the single-particle energy in nuclear matter, is properly considered in the DFM calculation. To validate the use of the density-dependent NN interaction at low energies, an adiabatic approximation was suggested for the dinuclear overlap density. The reliability of the nucleus–nucleus potential predicted through this low-energy version of the DFM was tested in the optical model(OM) analysis of the elastic^(12)C+^(12)C and ^(16)O+^(16)O scattering data at energies below 10 MeV/nucleon.These OM results provide a consistently good description of the elastic angular distributions and 90 excitation function. The dinuclear mean-field potential predicted by the DFM is further used to determine the astrophysical S factor of the ^(12)C+^(12)C and ^(16)O+^(16)O fusions in the barrier penetration model. Without any adjustment of the potential strength, our results reproduce the non-resonant behavior of the S factor of the ^(12)C+^(12)C and ^(16)O+^(16)O fusions very well over a wide range of energies.

Calculation of the ex-core neutron noise induced by individual fuel assembly vibrations in two PWR cores

Calculation of the neutron noise induced by fuel assembly vibrations in two pressurized water reactor(PWR) cores has been conducted to investigate the effect of cycle burnup on the properties of the ex-core detector noise. An extension of the method and the computational models of a previous work have been applied to two different PWR cores to examine a hypothesis that fuel assembly vibrations cause the corresponding peak in the auto power spectral density(APSD) increase during the cycle. Stochastic vibrations along a random two-dimensional trajectory of individual fuel assemblies were assumed to occur at different locations in the cores. Two models regarding the displacement amplitude of the vibrating assembly have been considered to determine the noise source. Then, the APSD of the ex-core detector noise was evaluated at three burnup steps. The results show that there is no monotonic tendency of the change in the APSD of ex-core detector; however, the increase in APSD occurs predominantly for peripheral assemblies. When assuming simultaneous vibrations of a number of fuel assemblies uniformly distributed over the core, the effect of the peripheral assemblies dominates the ex-core neutron noise.This behaviour was found similar in both cores.

Positron Annihilation in Perfect and Defective TiO₂Rutile Crystal with Single Particle Wave Function: Slater Type Orbital and Modified Jastrow Functions

Positron annihilation in TiO2 rutile crystal is studied by an assumption that a positron binds with valance electrons of a titanium dioxide to form a pseudo TiO2-positron molecule before it annihilates with these electrons. The orbital modification consisting of explicit electron-positron and electron-electron correlation in each electronic orbital is used for the electrons and positron wave functions. By these wave functions, the calculation results of the positron lifetimes in unmitigated and defective TiO2 crystals are about 170 ps, 266 ps and 243 ps, respectively. These results are in good agreement with experimental data of the positron lifetimes in vacancies of TiO2 from 180 ps to 300 ps.

Compensation of Zn substitution and secondary phase controls effective mass and weighted mobility in In and Ga co-doped ZnO material

Conductivity s and thermal conductivity k are directly related to carrier concentration while Seebeck coefficient S is inversely proportional to carrier concentration.Therefore,improving thermoelectric(TE)performance is challenging.Here,the first-time analysis of secondary phase-controlled TE performance in terms of density-of-state effective mass m*d,weighted mobility mw and quality factor B is discussed in ZnO system.The results show that the secondary spinel phase Ga2O_(3)(ZnO)9 not only impacts on k but also on s and S at high temperature,while the effect of carrier concentration seem to be dominant at low temperature.For the high-spinel-segregation sample,a compensation of dopant atoms from the spinel to substitutional sites in the ZnO matrix at high temperature leads to a low decreased rate of temperaturedependent m*d.The compensation process also induces a band sharpening,a small mw reduction,and a large B enhancement.As a result,In and Ga co-doped ZnO bulk with the highest spinel segregation achieves the greatest PF improvement by 112.8%,owing to enhanced Seebeck coefficient by 110%as compared to the good Zn-substitution sample.