Reactor Simulation for Antineutrino Experiments using DRAGON and MURE

TL;DR

This paper compares the DRAGON and MURE reactor simulation codes against industry standards using Takahama-3 data, focusing on their accuracy in predicting fuel composition and antineutrino flux for experiments.

Contribution

It provides a validation and comparison of DRAGON and MURE simulation tools for reactor modeling relevant to antineutrino experiments.

Findings

DRAGON and MURE show good agreement with industry standards.

Uncertainty propagation affects antineutrino flux predictions.

Validated simulation methods for reactor core modeling.

Abstract

Rising interest in nuclear reactors as a source of antineutrinos for experiments motivates validated, fast, and accessible simulations to predict reactor fission rates. Here we present results from the DRAGON and MURE simulation codes and compare them to other industry standards for reactor core modeling. We use published data from the Takahama-3 reactor to evaluate the quality of these simulations against the independently measured fuel isotopic composition. The propagation of the uncertainty in the reactor operating parameters to the resulting antineutrino flux predictions is also discussed.