1.3.1 Nuclear Transmutation of Cs with Laser Compton Scattering

Figure 1.5 shows the dependence of the reduction of 1 g 137Cs on the photon flux Ny = 1012, 1018, 1019,1020/s, which is calculated with this setup (Fig. 1.4). The number of 137Cs is effectively reduced with photon flux over 1018/s, that is, the number of 137Cs is reduced by 10 % for 24 h irradiation. Figure 1.6 shows the number of Cs isotopes when 1 g 137Cs is irradiated with photon flux 2 x 1012/s with the same setup. From this figure, we can see that the reduction rate of 137Cs by the transmutation, which is nearly equal to the generation rate of 136Cs, is two orders of magnitude smaller than the natural decay rate of 1 g 137Cs. Thus, the transmutation of 137Cs is not effective with photon flux 2 x 1012/s, which is maximum with present accelerator systems.