A quantum measurement model of reaction-transport systems

This research develops a mesoscopic quantum measurement theoretic foundation for neutron transport theory in the presence of delayed fission and compound scattering processes. Specifically, we construct a quantization of the Pal-Bell equation of stochastic neutron transport theory from a quantum stochastic calculus for particle detection in quantum fields. This enables us to formulate a quantum theory of mesoscopic neutron transport physics that explicitly incorporates both transport mechanisms and resonance scattering into a single quantum stochastic process. The quantum stochastic process representation is shown to have a unique, trace-norm convergent perturbation expansion in the number of observed reaction events. This expansion result, and the proofs that lead to it, help to establish a variety of approximation methods that are applied to nuclear data assimilation and neutron thermalization problems.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nuclear Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Percel, Ian M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Axford, Roy A.
• Junge, Marius
• Stubbins, James
• Zhang, Yang

• Quantum Measurement
• Quantum Probability
• Quantum Stochastic Processes
• Transport Theory
• Neutron Thermalization

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Ian Percel

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/100918

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F100918