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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Jean-Marc Depinay, Michel Caillaud, Remi Sentis
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 152 | Number 1 | January 2006 | Pages 48-55
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE06-A2562
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Application of the Monte Carlo method to deep-penetration transport problems often requires a biasing technique based on the use of an importance function. Here, in the framework of a multigroup model, we use an importance function in the form Ig([arrow over]x, [arrow over]) = eKg[arrow over].[arrow over]x[varphi]g([arrow over]), where g is the energy group index that ranges from 1 to G and [arrow over] is a vector usually fixed empirically. We describe an algorithm to find a good set of coefficients Kg and a good set of functions [varphi]g. To do this, we solve a system derived from the homogenous adjoint equations. We give two numerical examples where we show how these importance functions can enhance the accuracy of the computation.