Contact: Thierry Lasserre (thierry.lasserre@cea.fr)
Scientific goals :
Neutrinos are elementary particles produced abundantly in stars, in the Earth's atmosphere and in the cores of nuclear power plants. In 2006 CEA/IRFU and CNRS/IN2P3 have decided to officially launch the construction of the Double Chooz experiment. Two identical detectors are to be installed near the Chooz nuclear power plant, in the French Ardennes, at different distances from the reactors.
This experiment aims to provide accurate data on actinide neutron-induced fission fragment characteristics (mass distributions, kinetic energy) and neutron multiplicities in the energy range between 500 keV and 20 MeV. Those data are of particular interest for the nuclear community in view of the development of the fast reactor technology. For thermal neutron energies, a lot of fission reaction data are available. Some of them are still partial or suffer from insufficient accuracy.
Goal
This activity is focused on the study of neutron-induced reactions for nuclear astrophysics (stellar and big bang nucleosynthesis), for nuclear structure (levels density) and for nuclear technologies (current and innovative nuclear reactors, transmutation of nuclear wastes).
This program contributes to national and international efforts aiming at nuclear data improvement.
