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 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
March 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
DOE selects first companies for nuclear launch pad
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the National Reactor Innovation Center have announced their first selections for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad: three companies developing microreactors and one developing fuel supply.
The four companies—Deployable Energy, General Matter, NuCube Energy, and Radiant Industries—were selected from the initial pool of Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program applicants, the two precursor programs to the launch pad.
Philippe Humbert
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 200 | Number 4 | April 2026 | Pages 847-864
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2025.2480520
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For a number of applications like low-source reactor start-up or neutron coincidence counting, it is necessary to take into account the stochastic nature of neutron transport and go beyond the average neutron density, which is the solution to the linear Boltzmann equation. In this work, we are particularly interested in calculating the moments and probabilities of the number of neutrons detected during a time window. It is known that in the case of a single initial neutron, these quantities are the solution of a system of coupled adjoint transport equations and that a neutron source can be taken into account a second time using summations with the source strength. The purpose of the current work is first to present the derivation of these equations in a form where they can be solved up to an arbitrary order and where the fission terms are expanded according to the moments of the fission multiplicity. For simplicity, the derivation is first presented in a lumped, also called point, model approximation before considering the full phase-space case. Thereafter, we describe the implementation of the solution algorithm in the deterministic, discrete ordinates code PANDA. Finally, we present some numerical results and intercode comparisons for verification purposes and to illustrate the applicability of the method.