A depletion chain file has a <depletion_chain> root element with one or more <nuclide> child elements. The decay, reaction, and fission product data for each nuclide appears as child elements of <nuclide>.
The <nuclide> element contains information on the decay modes, reactions, and fission product yields for a given nuclide in the depletion chain. This element may have the following attributes:
- name
Name of the nuclide
- half_life
Half-life of the nuclide in [s]
- decay_modes
Number of decay modes present
- decay_energy
Decay energy released in [eV]
- reactions
Number of reactions present
For each decay mode, a io_chain_decay appears as a child of <nuclide>. For each reaction present, a io_chain_reaction appears as a child of <nuclide>. If the nuclide is fissionable, a io_chain_nfy appears as well.
The <decay> element represents a single decay mode and has the following attributes:
- type
The type of the decay, e.g. 'ec/beta+'
- target
The daughter nuclide produced from the decay
- branching_ratio
The branching ratio for this decay mode
The <reaction> element represents a single transmutation reaction. This element has the following attributes:
- type
The type of the reaction, e.g., '(n,gamma)'
- Q
The Q value of the reaction in [eV]
- target
The nuclide produced in the reaction (absent if the type is 'fission')
- branching_ratio
The branching ratio for the reaction
The <neutron_fission_yields> element provides yields of fission products for fissionable nuclides. Normally, it has the follow sub-elements:
- energies
Energies in [eV] at which yields for products are tabulated
- fission_yields
Fission product yields for a single energy point. This element itself has a number of attributes/sub-elements:
- energy
Energy in [eV] at which yields are tabulated
- products
Names of fission products
- data
Independent yields for each fission product
In the event that a nuclide doesn't have any known fission product yields, it is possible to have that nuclide borrow yields from another nuclide by indicating the other nuclide in a single parent attribute. For example:
<neutron_fission_yields parent="U235"/>