The physics of MONK 6. An overview

MONK represents the first concerted attempt to model collision processes with high fidelity and this paper justifies the rather complex developments which have taken place to bring this to fruition. This paper has attempted to justify the use of a point energy approach to Monte Carlo. The arguments in detail are complicated, but the following points, it is felt, have been established: the random errors, apart from real uncertainties in the specification of the system being modelled, can be reduced below one per cent, possibly down to three-quarters of one per cent; there is a much larger systematic spread than this in the use of group Monte Carlo methods, unless one is in a situation close to that in a reactor core and the calculations are being done by real experts; there is no cost penalty associated with point energy calculations; there is a very large gain in simplicity for the user in the use of point-energy methods; MONK 6 will have an improved range of validity over MONK 5 because of the new estimators and improved powering techniques; MONK 6 is chapter to run than MONK 5