Review of nuclear data required for nuclear transmutation systems of long-lived radioactive waste utilizing particle accelerators

In order to reduce the period for management of long-lived radioactive waste produced from nuclear fuel cycle facilities, waste disposal procedures based on nuclear transmutation have been proposed by several groups. Two of the proposed procedures are to utilize particle accelerators; one utilizes a high energy proton linac and the other a high energy electron linac. The former procedure intends to use the nuclear transmutation by proton-induced spallation reactions and the later one by photonuclear reactions with bremsstrahlung photon beams. If there are no evaluated nuclear data concerning the above two reactions, neutronic characteristics of transmutation facilities will not become clear. Cross-sections of both reactions are not included in currently existing neutron data files such as JENDL-3. Moreover these cross-sections reveal quite different behavior in comparison with those of low-energy neutron-induced reactions. In the present paper, reviewed are the current status and problems of experimental and evaluated nuclear data of the two reactions; because these data highly important to calculation on the neutronics of the transmutation facilities. (author)