Nuclear transmutation of long-lived nuclides with laser compton scattering: Quantitative analysis by theoretical approach

Abstract

A photo-neutron (γ, n) reaction with laser Compton scattering γ-rays has been suggested to be effective for the nuclear transmutations of fission products. The photo-neutron reaction occurs via a giant dipole resonance, which has a large cross section and whose properties are smooth functions of mass number. The laser Compton scattering can generate effectively and selectively high-energy photons with a desired energy range. In this chapter, we investigate quantitatively the effectiveness of the transmutation with laser Compton scattering based on the Hauser–Feshbach theory using the TALYS code. We carry out simulations for high-decay heating nuclide 137Cs, in which the cross sections for 137Cs (γ, γ), (γ, n), and (γ, 2n) reactions, and the total photonuclear reaction cross sections versus incident photon energy, are calculated. The incident photon energy obtained by laser Compton scattering is also optimized. It is shown that the transmutation with medium-energy photon with a flux of more than 1018/s effectively reduces the radioactivity of the target137Cs.