Doppler Broadening of Neutron Cross-Sections Using Kaniadakis Entropy

Entropy (Basel). 2022 Oct 9;24(10):1437. doi: 10.3390/e24101437.

Abstract

In the last seven years, Kaniadakis statistics, or κ-statistics, have been applied in reactor physics to obtain generalized nuclear data, which can encompass, for instance, situations that lie outside thermal equilibrium. In this sense, numerical and analytical solutions were developed for the Doppler broadening function using the κ-statistics. However, the accuracy and robustness of the developed solutions contemplating the κ distribution can only be appropriately verified if applied inside an official nuclear data processing code to calculate neutron cross-sections. Hence, the present work inserts an analytical solution for the deformed Doppler broadening cross-section inside the nuclear data processing code FRENDY, developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. To do that, we applied a new computational method called the Faddeeva package, developed by MIT, to calculate error functions present in the analytical function. With this deformed solution inserted in the code, we were able to calculate, for the first time, deformed radiative capture cross-section data for four different nuclides. The usage of the Faddeeva package brought more accurate results when compared to other standard packages, reducing the percentage errors in the tail zone in relation to the numerical solution. The deformed cross-section data agreed with the expected behavior compared to the Maxwell-Boltzmann.

Keywords: Doppler broadening function; Faddeeva function; Kaniadakis; neutron cross-section; κ-statistics.