Nuclear data represents measured (or evaluated) probabilities of various physical interactions involving the nuclei of atoms. It is used to understand the nature of such interactions by providing the fundamental input to many models and simulations, such as fission and fusion reactor calculations, shielding and radiation protection calculations, criticality safety, nuclear weapons, nuclear physics research, medical radiotherapy, radioisotope therapy and diagnostics, particle accelerator design and operations, geological and environmental work, radioactive waste disposal calculations, and space travel calculations.

It groups all experimental data relevant for nuclear physics and nuclear engineering. It includes a large number of physical quantities, like scattering and reaction cross sections (which are generally functions of energy and angle), nuclear structure and nuclear decay parameters, etc. It can involve neutrons, protons, deuterons, alpha particles, and virtually all nuclear isotopes which can be handled in a laboratory.

There are two major reasons to need high-quality nuclear data: theoretical model development of nuclear physics, and applications involving radiation and nuclear power. There is often an interplay between these two aspects, since applications often motivate research in particular theoretical fields, and theory can be used to predict quantities or phenomena which can lead to new or improved technological concepts.[1]

Nuclear Data Evaluations

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To ensure a level of quality required to protect the public, experimental nuclear data results are occasionally evaluated by a Nuclear Data Organization to form a nuclear data library. These organizations review multiple measurements and agree upon the highest-quality measurements before publishing the libraries. For unmeasured or very complex data regimes, the parameters of nuclear models are adjusted until the resulting data matches well with critical experiments. The result of an evaluation is almost universally stored as a set of data files in Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF) format. To keep the size of these files reasonable, they contain a combination of actual data tables and resonance parameters that can be reconstructed into pointwise data with specialized tools (such as NJOY).

Nuclear Data Organizations

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Releases of ENDF/B Files

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The historical releases of ENDF/B files are summarized below.

File version Release Date[2]
ENDF/B-I 1968
ENDF/B-II 1970
ENDF/B-III 1972
ENDF/B-IV 1974
ENDF/B-V 1978
ENDF/B-VI 1990
ENDF/B-VII 2006
ENDF/B-VII.1 2011[3]
ENDF/B-VIII 2018[4]

The historical releases of JEFF files are summarized below.

File version Release Date[5]
JEF-2.2 1992
JEFF-3.0 2002
JEFF-3.1 2005
JEFF-3.1.1 2009
JEFF-3.1.2 2011
JEFF-3.2 2014
JEFF-3.3 2017

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Aliberti, G.; Palmiotti, G.; Salvatores, M.; Kim, T.K.; Taiwo, T.A.; Anitescu, M.; Kodeli, I.; Sartori, E.; Bosq, J.C.; Tommasi, J. (2006). "Nuclear data sensitivity, uncertainty and target accuracy assessment for future nuclear systems" (PDF). Annals of Nuclear Energy. 33 (8): 700–733. doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2006.02.003. Retrieved 2018-06-07.
  2. ^ Oblozinsky, Pavel (August 10, 2006). "Nuclear Data: New ENDF/B-VII Library" (PDF). Brookhaven National Laboratory. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
  3. ^ Oblozinsky, Pavel (December 2011). "Special Issue on ENDF/B-VII.1 Library". Nuclear Data Sheets.
  4. ^ Brown, David (February 2, 2018). "ENDF/B-VIII.0". Cross Section Evaluation Working Group (CSEWG) Announcement, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  5. ^ "NEA JEFF page". Retrieved 2019-08-12.