0000000000637025
AUTHOR
J. Äystö
Applications of the total absorption technique to improve reactor decay heat calculations: study of the beta decay of [sup 102,104,105]Tc
The decay heat of the fission products plays an important role in predicting the heat‐up of nuclear fuel after reactor shutdown. This form of energy release is calculated as the sum of the energy‐weighted activities of all fission products P(t) = ΣEiλiNi(t), where Ei is the decay energy of nuclide i (gamma and beta component), λi is the decay constant of nuclide i and Ni(t) is the number of nuclide i at cooling time t. Even though the reproduction of the measured decay heat has improved in recent years, there is still a long standing discrepancy at t∼1000 s cooling time for some fuels. A possible explanation for this disagreement can been found in the work of Yoshida et al. [1], who demonst…
β-decay of [sup 23]Al and nova nucleosynthesis
We have studied the β‐decay of 23Al with a novel detector setup at the focal plane of the MARS separator at the Texas A&M University to resolve existing controversies about the proton intensities of the IAS in 23Mg and to determine the absolute proton branching ratios by combining our results to the latest γ‐decay data. Experimental technique, results and the relevance for nova nucleosynthesis are discussed.