ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Hunter Belanger, Davide Mancusi, Amélie Rouchon, Andrea Zoia
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 4 | April 2023 | Pages 534-557
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2126719
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron noise in nuclear power reactors refers to the small fluctuations around the average neutron flux at steady state resulting from time-dependent perturbations inside the core. The neutron noise equations in the frequency domain can be solved using Monte Carlo simulation codes, which are capable of obtaining reference solutions involving almost no approximations but are hindered by severe issues affecting the statistical convergence: The simultaneous presence of positive and negative particles, which is required by the nature of the complex noise equations, leads to catastrophically large variance in the tallies. In this work, we consider the important case of neutron noise problems induced by mechanical vibrations. First, we derive a new exact sampling strategy for the noise source. Then, building upon our previous findings in other contexts, we show that weight cancellation methods can be highly beneficial in dealing with the presence of negative weights, enabling extremely large gains in the figure of merit. We successfully demonstrate our results on a benchmark configuration consisting of a fuel assembly with a vibrating pin, and we discuss possible pathways for further improvements.