Kernel reconstruction methods for Doppler broadening Temperature interpolation by linear combination of reference cross sections at optimally chosen temperatures

This article establishes a new family of methods to perform temperature interpolation of nuclear interactions cross sections, reaction rates, or cross sections times the energy. One of these quantities at temperature T is approximated as a linear combination of quantities at reference temperatures (Tj). The problem is formalized in a cross section independent fashion by considering the kernels of the different operators that convert cross section related quantities from a temperature T0 to a higher temperature T namely the Doppler broadening operation. Doppler broadening interpolation of nuclear cross sections is thus here performed by reconstructing the kernel of the operation at a given temperature T by means of linear combination of kernels at reference temperatures (Tj). The choice of the L2 metric yields optimal linear interpolation coefficients in the form of the solutions of a linear algebraic system inversion. The optimization of the choice of reference temperatures (Tj) is then undertaken so as to best reconstruct, in the L sense, the kernels over a given temperature range [Tmin,Tmax]. The performance of these kernel reconstruction methods is then assessed in light of previous temperature interpolation methods by testing them upon isotope 238U. Temperature-optimized free Doppler kernel reconstruction significantly outperforms all previous interpolation-based methods, achieving 0.1% relative error on temperature interpolation of 238U total cross section over the temperature range [300K,3000K] with only 9 reference temperatures. Developed cross section independent methods to perform temperature interpolation as L2 kernel reconstruction optimization problems.A cross section is approximated as a linear combination of reference temperatures cross sections.L2 norm is physically justified, yielding formulae for optimal interpolation coefficients.Optimal reference temperature grids are developed.Kernel reconstruction significantly outperforms previous temperature interpolation methods.