A Note on the Generalized Friedmann Equations for a Thick Brane

Within our thick brane approach previously used to obtain the cosmological evolution equations on a thick brane embedded in a five-dimensional Schwarzschild Anti-de Sitter spacetime it is explicitly shown that the consistency of these equations with the energy conservation equation requires that, in general, the thickness of the brane evolves in time. This varying brane thickness entails the possibility that both Newton's gravitational constant $G$ and the effective cosmological constant $\Lambda_4$ are time dependent.Comment: 6 pages,To appear in GR

On matching LTB and Vaidya spacetimes through a null hypersurface

In this work the matching of a LTB interior solution representing dust matter to the Vaidya exterior solution describing null fluid through a null hypersurface is studied. Different cases in which one is able to smoothly match these two solutions to Einstein equations along a null hypesurface are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in GR

A pragmatic approach towards designing a second shutdown system for Tehran research reactor

One second shutdown system is proposed for the Tehran Research Reactor to achieve the goal of higher safety in compliance with current operational requirements and regulations and improve the overall reliability of the reactor shutdown system. The proposed second shutdown system is a diverse, independent shutdown system compared to the existing rod based one that intends to achieve and maintain sub-criticality condition with an enough shutdown margin in many of abnormal situations. It is designed as much as practical based on neutron absorber solution injection into the existing core while the changes and interferences with the existing core structure are kept to a minimum. Core neutronic calculations were performed using MCNPX 2.6.0 and MTR_PC package for the current operational core equipped with the second shutdown system, and one experiment was conducted in the Tehran Research Reactor to test the neutronic calculations. A good agreement was seen between theoretical results and experimental ones. In addition, capability of the second shutdown system in the case of occurrence of design basis accident in the Tehran Research Reactor is demonstrated using PARET program

Development and Experimental Validation of a Correlation Monitor Tool Based on the Endogenous Pulsed Neutron Source Technique

A correlation measuring tool for an endogenous pulsed neutron source experiment is developed in this work. Paroxysmal pulses generated by a bursts of neutron chains are detected by a 10-kbit embedded shift register with a time resolution of 100 ns. The system is implemented on a single reprogrammable device making it a compact, cost-effective instrument, easily adaptable for any case study. The system was verified experimentally in the Esfahan heavy-water zero power reactor (EHWZPR). The results obtained by the measuring tool are validated by the Feynman-α experiment, and a good agreement is seen within the boundaries of statistical uncertainties. The theory of the methods is briefly initiated in the text. Also, the system structure is described, the experimental results and their uncertainties are discussed, and neutron statistics in EHWZPR is examined experimentally