Actions for Computational Assessment of Naturally Occurring Neutron and Photon Background Radiation Produced by Extraterrestrial Sources [electronic resource].

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Computational Assessment of Naturally Occurring Neutron and Photon Background Radiation Produced by Extraterrestrial Sources [electronic resource].

Published
Washington, D.C. : United States. National Nuclear Security Administration, 2015.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Physical Description
pages 240-249 : digital, PDF file
Additional Creators
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States. National Nuclear Security Administration, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
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Summary
In this study, a computational assessment of the variation in terrestrial neutron and photon background from extraterrestrial sources is presented. The motivation of this assessment is to evaluate the practicality of developing a tool or database to estimate background in real time (or near–real time) during an experimental measurement or to even predict the background for future measurements. The extraterrestrial source focused on during this assessment is naturally occurring galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). The MCNP6 transport code was used to perform the computational assessment. However, the GCR source available in MCNP6 was not used. Rather, models developed and maintained by NASA were used to generate the GCR sources. The largest variation in both neutron and photon background spectra was found to be caused by changes in elevation on Earth's surface, which can be as large as an order of magnitude. All other perturbations produced background variations on the order of a factor of 3 or less. The most interesting finding was that ~80% and 50% of terrestrial background neutrons and photons, respectively, are generated by interactions in Earth's surface and other naturally occurring and man-made objects near a detector of particles from extraterrestrial sources and their progeny created in Earth's atmosphere. In conclusion, this assessment shows that it will be difficult to estimate the terrestrial background from extraterrestrial sources without a good understanding of a detector's surroundings. Therefore, estimating or predicting background during a measurement environment like a mobile random search will be difficult.
Report Numbers
E 1.99:1286826
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Other Subject(s)
Note
Published through SciTech Connect.
10/28/2015.
"NN2001000"
"NNPORES"
Nuclear Technology 192 3 ISSN 0029-5450 AM
Thomas Martin Miller; Wouter C. de Wet; Bruce W. Patton.
Funding Information
AC05-00OR22725
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