• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.285-292
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• 2016

Reactor neutrinos have been detected in the past 50 years by various detectors for different purposes. Beginning in the 1980s, neutrino physicists have tried to use neutrinos to monitor reactors and develop an optimized detector for nuclear safeguards. Recently, motivated by neutrino oscillation physics, the technology and scale of reactor neutrino detection have progressed considerably. In this review, I will give an overview of the detection technology for reactor neutrinos, and describe the issues related to further improvements in optimized detectors for reactor monitoring.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.42.1-42.1
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• 2014

Neutrino science has received a boost of attention quite recently in cosmology, since the outstanding discovery in particle physics over the last decade that neutrinos are massive: pinpointing the neutrino masses is one of the greatest challenges in science today, at the cross-road between particle-physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. Cosmology offers a unique 'laboratory' with the best sensitivity to the neutrino mass, as primordial massive neutrinos comprise a small portion of the dark matter and are known to significantly alter structure formation. I will first introduce a new suite of state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations with cold dark matter, baryons and massive neutrinos, specifically targeted for modeling the low-density regions of the intergalactic medium as probed by the Lyman-Alpha forest at high-redshift. I will then present and discuss how these simulations are used to constrain the parameters of the LCDM cosmological model in presence of massive neutrinos, in combination with BOSS data and other cosmological probes, leading to the strongest bound to date on the total neutrino mass.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.38.1-38.1
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• 2018

With upcoming high-quality data from surveys such as eBOSS or DESI, improving the theoretical modeling and gaining a deeper understanding of the effects of neutrinos and dark radiation on structure formation at small scales are necessary, to obtain robust constraints free from systematic biases. Using a novel suite of hydrodynamical simulations that incorporate dark matter, baryons, massive neutrinos, and dark radiation, we present a detailed study of their impact on Lyman-Alpha forest observables. In particular, we accurately measure the tomographic evolution of the shape and amplitude of the small-scale matter and flux power spectra and search for unique signatures along with preferred scales where a neutrino mass detection may be feasible. We then investigate the thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) through the temperature-density relation. Our results indicate that the IGM at z ~ 3 provides the best sensitivity to active and sterile neutrinos.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.321-325
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• 2015

Determining the absolute neutrino mass scale and the neutrino mass hierarchy are central goals in particle physics, with important implications for the Standard Model. However, the final answer may come from cosmology, as laboratory experiments provide measurements for two of the squared mass differences and a stringent lower bound on the total neutrino mass - but the upper bound is still poorly constrained, even when considering forecasted results from future probes. Cosmological tracers are very sensitive to neutrino properties and their total mass, because massive neutrinos produce a specific redshift-and scale-dependent signature in the power spectrum of the matter and galaxy distributions. Stringent upper limits on ${\sum}m_v$ will be essential for understanding the neutrino sector, and will nicely complement particle physics results. To this end, we describe here a series of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations which include massive neutrinos, specifically designed to meet the requirements of the Baryon Acoustic Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) and focused on the Lyman-${\alpha}$ ($Ly{\alpha}$) forest - also a useful theoretical ground for upcoming surveys such as SDSS-IV/eBOSS and DESI. We then briefly highlight the remarkable constraining power of the $Ly{\alpha}$ forest in terms of the total neutrino mass, when combined with other state-of-the-art cosmological probes, leaving to a stringent upper bound on ${\sum}m_v$.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.155-159
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• 2016

Background: Nuclear reactors produce a great number of antielectron neutrinos mainly from beta-decay chains of fission products. Such neutrinos have energies mostly in MeV range. We are interested in neutrinos in a region of keV, since they may take part in special weak interactions. We calculate reactor antineutrino spectra especially in the low energy region. In this work we present neutrino spectrum from a typical pressurized water reactor (PWR) reactor core. Materials and Methods: To calculate neutrino spectra, we need information about all generated nuclides that emit neutrinos. They are mainly fission fragments, reaction products and trans-uranium nuclides that undergo negative beta decay. Information in relation to trans-uranium nuclide compositions and its evolution in time (burn-up process) were provided by a reactor code MVP-BURN. We used typical PWR parameter input for MVP-BURN code and assumed the reactor to be operated continuously for 1 year (12 months) in a steady thermal power (3.4 GWth). The PWR has three fuel compositions of 2.0, 3.5 and 4.1 wt% $^{235}U$ contents. For preliminary calculation we adopted a standard burn-up chain model provided by MVP-BURN. The chain model treated 21 heavy nuclides and 50 fission products. The MVB-BURN code utilized JENDL 3.3 as nuclear data library. Results and Discussion: We confirm that the antielectron neutrino flux in the low energy region increases with burn-up of nuclear fuel. The antielectron-neutrino spectrum in low energy region is influenced by beta emitter nuclides with low Q value in beta decay (e.g. $^{241}Pu$) which is influenced by burp-up level: Low energy antielectron-neutrino spectra or emission rates increase when beta emitters with low Q value in beta decay accumulate Conclusion: Our result shows the flux of low energy reactor neutrinos increases with burn-up of nuclear fuel.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.35.3-35.3
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• 2017

Neutrinos play an important role in astronomy and therefore they need to be observed as well as other astronomical messengers. The first observation of astronomical neutrinos is from the SN1987a by the Kamiokande neutrino telescope in Japan. Unlike other astronomical messengers neutrinos can cover all energy range of astronomical phenomena due to their weak interactions and neutrality. Multi messenger astronomy including optical, neutrino, and cosmic ray observations, provides more information on astronomical phenomena and thus such collaborational works are ongoing worldwide. A future Korean neutrino telescope consisting of huge (260 kiloton) water Cherenkov detector under a mountain was proposed in 2016 and the sensitivity studies on various topics are in progress with international collaborators. In this talk I will introduce the future Korean neutrino telescope and its science as well as the potential candidate sites in Korea. We invite all of you to work together for the future Korean neutrino telescope that will operate more than 30 years.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.57.1-57.1
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• 2019

In support of current and upcoming large-volume cosmological surveys such as the SDSS-IV eBOSS, LSST, and DESI, we present an extensive suite of high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations spanning a large range of cosmological and astrophysical parameters. We follow the evolution of gas, dark matter, neutrinos, and dark radiation, and consider several combinations of box sizes and number of particles - enhancing the resolution up to $3{\times}33283=110$ billion particles in a (100 h-1 Mpc)3 box size. We also provide 100,000 skewers for a variety of redshift slices and combination of cosmological and astrophysical parameters, useful for interpreting upcoming high-quality $Lyman-{\alpha}$ forest data. These novel simulations represent an improvement over our previous runs, and can be useful for a broader variety of cosmological and astrophysical applications, ranging from the three-dimensional modeling of the $Lyman-{\alpha}$ forest to cross-correlations between different probes, for studying the expansion history of the Universe including massive neutrinos, and for particle-physics related topics.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.47.3-48
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• 2020

I will present the Sejong Suite, an extensive collection of state-of-the-art high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations spanning a variety of cosmological and astrophysical parameters, primarily developed for modeling the Lyman-Alpha forest. Adopting a particle-based implementation, we follow the evolution of gas, dark matter (cold and warm), massive neutrinos, and dark radiation, and consider several combinations of box sizes and number of particles. Noticeably, for the first time, we simulate extended mixed scenarios describing the combined effects of warm dark matter, neutrinos, and dark radiation, modeled consistently by taking into account the neutrino mass splitting. Along the way, I will also highlight some new results focused on the matter and flux statistics.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.373-377
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• 2016

Background: Experiments with small electrochemical apparatus were previously carried out for detecting low-energy neutrinos under irradiation of reactor neutrinos and under natural neutrino environment. The experimental result indicated that the output current of reactor-neutrino irradiated detector was appreciably larger than that of natural environmental one. Usual interaction cross-sections of neutrinos are quite small, so that they do not explain the experimental result at all. Materials and Methods: To understand the experimental data, we propose that some biological products may generate AV-type scalar field B0, leading to a large interaction cross-section. The output current generation is ascribed to an electrochemical process that may be assisted by weak interaction phenomena. Dissolved oxygen concentrations in the detector solution were measured in this study, for the purpose of understanding the mechanism of the detector output current generation. Results and Discussion: It was found that the time evolution of experimental output current was mostly reproduced in simulation calculation on the basis of the measured dissolved oxygen concentration. Conclusion: We mostly explained the variation of experimental data by using the electrochemical half-cell analysis model based on the DO concentration that is consistent to the experiment.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.79-81
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• 1993

We calculated the solar monopole abundance limit by comparing the observed solar neutrino flux and the calculation of non-fusion solar neutrino flux produced by Rubakov process in the solar core. We included the produced meson's enhancement effects by the surrounding ions in the solar core. We find that the monopole number $N_M<1.9\times10^{20}(1mb/{\sigma}0)$, where ${\sigma}0$ is the characteristic proton decay cross section of Rubakov process. This is similar or stronger than strong limits obtained from neutron star's luminosity.