Development of Prototype Nuclear Forensics Library for Radioactive Isotopes at Japan Atomic Energy Agency

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has initiated an R&D activities on nuclear forensics (NF) technical capabilities from 2011 JFY, based on the national statement issued by the Japan Government at Nuclear Security Summit 2010 (Washington D.C., USA). The R&D activities includes development of prototype nuclear forensics library (NFL) for future national NFL (NNFL) and evaluation methodology for seizure analysis using NFL. Recently, the development of nuclear forensics library has been carried out in some countries and the concept of NNFL with point-of-contact is the most popular [1]. The prototype-NFL at JAEA also follows this concept and the prototype library has been designed based on the material data possessed by JAEA. Development of basic system of nuclear material database (NMDB) has been already completed and nuclear material data in JAEA have been accumulated. As the next step of the prototype library, radioactive Isotope database (RIDB) has been designed and its basic computational system has been developed. The RIDB was designed to identify radioactive sources and their historical information such as manufacturing, storage, balance, and change. JAEA also participated in the 2nd virtual table top exercise on NNFL named Galaxy Serpent. The target material of the exercise was radioactive isotopes, and the experiences of library development and seizure analysis obtained from the exercise were utilized to the RIDB development in JAEA effectively.