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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
November 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
NNSA furloughs 1,400 employees, pays contractors until end of month
After nearly three weeks of a government shutdown, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has furloughed 1,400 employees and has retained 400 as essential employees who will continue working without pay.
Leib Finkelstein
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 32 | Number 2 | May 1968 | Pages 241-248
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A19736
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A complete inverse mass expansion is derived for the difference-differential equation describing neutron moderation in infinite homogeneous media, far energetically from the sources. We consider slowing down equations with different values of the nucleus-to-neutron mass ratio, and a common value of the capture-to-scattering cross-section ratio. The latter is assumed to be an analytic function of lethargy. A preliminary analysis suggests the functional form of the leading term of the expansion. Further treatment leads to a first-order, linear, inhomogeneous, ordinary differential equation satisfied by the expansion terms. Different terms of the expansion correspond to different free terms of the differential equation. Imposing a normalization condition, the solution of the differential equation is made unique, and a formal, practically effective solution to the general asymptotic moderation problem is obtained.