Andrea Mattera

Design of a neutron converter for fission studies at the IGISOL facility

The upgraded IGISOL facility with JYFLTRAP, at the accelerator laboratory of the University of Jyvaskyla, has been supplied with a new cyclotron which will provide proton or deuteron beams of the order of 100 μA with up to 30 MeV energy. This makes it an ideal place for measurements of neutron-induced fission fragments from various actinides, in view of proposed future nuclear fuel cycles. In the present paper, some considerations for the design of a neutron converter, based on simulations with the Monte Carlo codes MCNPX and FLUKA, are described.

Measuring independent yields of fission products using a penning trap

A new method for determining independent fission products is used in an experiment at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyväskylä. The method combines the chemical universality of the ion guide technique and the unique properties of the Penning trap. A beam of charged particles is formed by stopping fission products in gaseous helium. The Penning trap is employed as a highly accurate filter to identify particles by their mass. The yields of fission products are determined by the ion count downstream of the trap. The setup’s mass resolving power is on the order of 105 with a radio frequency excitation time of 400 ms. Such high mass resolution occasionally allows us not only to separate nuclides but to separate the isomeric and ground states of nuclei as well. Independent yields of fission products are measured in the fission reaction of the 232Th isotope by protons with an energy of 25 MeV. A short description of the method ae nd soexperimental data are supplememnted by the results fro theoretical calculations.

A ROOT-based analysis tool for measurements of neutron-induced fission products at the IGISOL facility

For the sustainable development of nuclear energy, the handling of used nuclear fuel is a key issue. Innovative fuel cycles are being developed for the transmutation of minor actinides and long-lived fission products. In view of these developments, accurate knowledge of the fuel inventory is necessary. The IGISOL facility with JYFLTRAP, at the accelerator laboratory of the University of Jyvaskyla, will be used to measure independent fission yield distributions from neutron-induced fission on different actinides. In this paper, an analysis tool is developed, using the CERN-based ROOT Data Analysis Framework, with the objective of performing full data analysis within the same code. The analysis tool is currently being tested on the data from measurements with 25 MeV protons on a 232Th target, and some preliminary results are presented.