Monte Carlo work at Argonne National Laboratory

A simple model of the Monte Carlo process is described and a (nonlinear) recursion relation between fission sources in successive generations is developed. From the linearized form of these recursion relations, it is possible to derive expressions for the mean square coefficients of error modes in the iterates and for correlation coefficients between fluctuations in successive generations. First-order nonlinear terms in the recursion relation are analyzed. From these nonlinear terms an expression for the bias in the eigenvalue estimator is derived, and prescriptions for measuring the bias are formulated. Plans for the development of the VIM code are reviewed, and the proposed treatment of small sample perturbations in VIM is described. 6 references. (U.S.)