Workshop for Applied Nuclear Data Activities (WANDA 2023)

→ US/Eastern
Arlington Ballroom 1 & 2 (Crowne Plaza Crystal City)

Arlington Ballroom 1 & 2

Crowne Plaza Crystal City

1480 Crystal Dr, Arlington, VA 22202
Amy Lovell (Los Alamos National Laboratory ), Bruce Pierson (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Description

Welcome to WANDA 2023,

We would like to ask that you save the date for the WANDA 2023 meeting February 27 – March 2, 2023. Invitations are in the works and well arrive shortly.  This meeting will be held in-person ONLY.

WANDA is an annual meeting that addresses the value, needs, and impact of nuclear data on applied sciences.  Please see below for this year’s session topics, session description and session co-chairs:

Fission Yields, where we were, are, and headed/Theory, Evaluation, Experiments, Validation

Chairs: Jason Harke (LLNL), Sebastian Schunert (INL)

Session Summary: Significant investment into improved measurements and theory combined with both national and international collaboration currently leading to the first US re-evaluation of fission product yields on the 30th anniversary of England & Rider’s release of ENDF-349. The enhancements in the fidelity and quality of fission product yield measurements and theory as a function of incident neutron energy was a dormant art before this investment. This session will review the historical needs that drove this investment to re-assess fission product yield data, their applications, and user data needs to identify what next steps in this focal area should be. Emphasis will be placed on the value of this data on reactor decay heat calculations, reactor fuel inventory estimates, and national security needs. This session will focus on:

  • What steps have been accomplished thus far addressing these needs?
  • What applied needs remain unmet?
  • What future steps are needed to close the gap on past, current, and future needs for improved fission product data?

 

Isotope Programs Session

Chairs: Etienne Vermeulen (LANL), Andrew Voyles (UC Berkeley)

Session Summary: The isotope production landscape has changed significantly over the last four years, both because of the war in Ukraine as well as additions from new commercial suppliers in the medium energy proton range and with electron accelerators. This session aims to check in with the 2018 speakers for a status update and an assessment of the changes in needs across the isotope production field. This session will focus on:

  • Status of isotope production data at the labs & universities
  • What has been achieved since 2018
  • Where do we go heading forward for Isotope production in a changed landscape?
  • What are the needs to improve robustness of measurements?

 

Gamma-Ray Strength Functions and Level Densities

Chairs: Stephanie Lyons (PNNL), Gencho Rusev (LANL)

Session Summary: The session will contain focused discussions on specific research applications of gamma-ray strength functions and levels densities, for example, Hauser-Feshbach calculations (Monte Carlo or deterministic) and neutron-capture cross sections calculations, astrophysical network calculations, radiation transport simulations, calculations of the gamma-ray heat in reactors, and the reactor antineutrino problem. This session will focus on:

  • Current nuclear data gaps in astrophysics
  • Conduct a roadmapping discussion identifying actionable work to address current gaps

 

(The Future of) Nuclear Data Processing & Preservation

Chairs: Libby Ricard-McCutchan (BNL), Nathan Gibson (LANL)

Session Summary: This bi-modal session will start with a discussion about expanding data availability and the rapidly evolving computational landscape. New computing architectures and simulation approaches require changes in nuclear processing and formatting to support new methods. Discussions about data preservation will follow in the afternoon. Sophisticated datasets are seldom mined for all their richness and often analyzed with a focused goal and then shelved.  This is inefficient, both intellectually and financially.  A newly issued OSTP memorandum will require data underlying federally funded research to be made “freely available and publicly accessible by default at the time of publication.” This session will focus on:

  • What does the future of nuclear data processing look like?
  • How do we address data curation, preservation, and sharing?
  • What improvements are necessary to completely preserve modern datasets?

 

Lisa Felker