Editorial17 Aug 2025
Bridging nuclear physics across energy scales: from neutrinoless double-beta decay to high-energy heavy-ion collisions
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Research article24 Mar 2026
Artificial intelligence in reactor physics: current status and future prospects
Reactor physics is the study of neutron properties, focusing on the use of models to examine the interactions between neutrons and materials in nuclear reactors. Artificial intelligence (AI) has made significant contributions to reactor physics, such as in operational simulations, safety design, real-time monitoring, core management, and maintenance. This paper presents a comprehensive review of AI approaches in reactor physics, especially considering the category of Machine Learning (ML, which we also refer to as AI/ML to recall the AI name we found in articles), with the aim of describing the application scenarios, frontier topics, unsolved challenges, and future research directions. From equation solving and state parameter prediction to nuclear industry applications, this study provides a step-by-step overview of ML methods applied to steady-state, transient, and burnup problems. Most studies have achieved industry-demanded models by enhancing the efficiency of deterministic methods or correcting uncertainty methods, which leads to successful applications. However, research on ML methods in reactor physics is somewhat fragmented, and the ability to generalize models must be strengthened. Progress is still possible, especially in addressing theoretical challenges and enhancing industrial applications, such as building surrogate models and digital twins.
He-Lin Gong, Rui-Zhi Zhang, Sheng-Feng Zhu, Kan Wang, Ding She, Jean-Philippe Argaud, Bertrand Bouriquet, Qing Li
Research article24 Mar 2026
Generation of fission yield covariance matrices and its application in uncertainty analysis of decay heat
The uncertainties and covariance matrices of the fission yield are important in the uncertainty analysis of the decay heat. At present, there are no covariance matrixes of fission yield given in the evaluated nuclear data library, although they provide uncertainties with good estimates. In this study, the generalized least squares (GLS) updating approach was adopted to evaluate the fission yield covariances with constraints from the basic physical conservation equation and chain yield data, using the nuclear data files from ENDF/B-VIII.0, JENDL-5, and JEFF-3.3. Based on the original and updated data, summation calculations were performed for the fission pulse decay heat of thermal neutron-induced fission of 235U. The uncertainties of the decay heat were obtained using the generalized perturbation theory, including the uncertainties propagated from the fission yield, decay energy, decay constant, and branching ratio. The original uncorrelated yield data contributed to a ~4% uncertainty at all times, and dominated the decay heat uncertainty at cooling times longer than 100 s. With the generated covariance matrixes, the uncertainty of the calculated decay heat was significantly reduced, and the decay energy data generally made a major contribution. The relative uncertainties at cooling time 0.1 s were ~10% for ENDF/V-VIII.0, JEFF-3.3, and ~5% for JENDL-5, and those at cooling time 105 s were approximately 1% for the three libraries. The influence of the GLS updating procedure on the contributions of important fission products to the decay heat and their sensitivity coefficients is also discussed.
Tao Ye, Hai-Rui Guo, Wen-Di Chen, Jia-Hao Chen, Bo Yang, Yang-Jun Ying
Research article24 Mar 2026
Probing the collision geometry via two-photon processes in heavy-ion collisions
The initial collision geometry, including the reaction plane, is crucial for interpreting the collective phenomena in relativistic heavy-ion collisions; however, it remains experimentally inaccessible through conventional measurements. Recent studies have proposed the utilization of photon-induced processes as a direct probe, leveraging the complete linear polarization of emitted photons, whose orientation strongly correlates with the collision geometry. In this study, we employed a QED-based approach to systematically investigate dilepton production via two-photon processes in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies and detector acceptances. Our calculations reveal that dilepton emission exhibits significant sensitivity to the initial collision geometry through both the azimuthal angles of their emission (defined by the relative momentum vector of the two leptons) and the overall momentum orientation of dilepton pairs. These findings highlight the potential of two-photon-generated dileptons as a novel polarization-driven probe for quantifying the initial collision geometry and reducing uncertainties in the characterization of quark-gluon plasma properties.
Wang-Mei Zha, Jia-Xuan Luo, Xin-Bai Li, Ze-Bo Tang, Xin Wu, Shuai Yang, Zhan Zhang
CURRENT ISSUE
Nuclear Science and TechniquesVol.37, No.6
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International Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics
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Research Story
Unraveling Asymmetric Collisions with Tsallis Thermodynamics
Speedy Nuclear Measurements for Cleaner Energy
Bromine's Neutron Capture and the s-Process
Nondestructive Neutron Techniques boosts Material Research and Preservation
Speedy Nuclear Measurements for Cleaner Energy
Advancing Particle Analysis with Intelligent Algorithms
Exploring Nuclear Energy with Lithium Reactions
Innovative Neutronics Modeling to Maximize Plutonium-238 Output
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Open Seminar in Frontier of Nuclear Physics
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