ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The deadline arrives: Checking in on the Reactor Pilot Program
On May 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the DOE,” which instructed the Department of Energy to create a Reactor Pilot Program (RPP)—a new system in which companies could pursue DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. EO 14301 set an ambitious goal for that program: three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.
P. Wälti
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 36 | Number 2 | May 1969 | Pages 133-142
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A19713
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The mathematical model of age-dependent branching processes is used to describe neutron slowing down and multiplication in an infinite medium. To construct the probability measure of the neutron branching process, it is necessary to determine the probability density for a neutron of age θ(=time elapsed since birth of the fission neutron) to have energy E. This problem, which is equivalent to the time-dependent slowing down problem, is solved for a scattering law of the form v(E)Σs(E → E′)dE′ = aEµh(E′/E) (dE′/E) and an absorption cross section satisfying the relation v(E) Σa(E) = bEµ + c. In this case, it is proved that there always exist particular “invariant” probability densities suffering only contraction during ageing, i.e., having the form . For the time-dependent slowing down problem with a Greuling-Goertzel kernel, the results are compared with those of Koppel. Particular attention is paid to stationary energy spectra.