Hermite Approximation of the Neutron Transport Equation

A semianalytical method is developed for solving the stationary neutron transport equation in plane geometry. The angular variable is treated fully analytically, while the spatial dependence is approximated by the two-point Hermite method of arbitrary order k. The theory will be applied to a multigroup, multizone calculation of shields with P_L scattering. Although the treatment is restricted to a k = 1 Hermite approximation, results are improved by introducing asymptotic coefficients simulating the k = ∞ case. Comparison with ANISN shows that the present method converges faster and leads to shorter computing times.