Nuclear solitary wave

This paper gives an overview of our recent work on the fission solitary wave reactor concept. In order to gain an insight into this problem a simple but appropriate model, namely a one-group diffusion equation coupled with simplified burn-up equations, is studied. It is shown that this coupled system is analytically solvable in its one-dimensional case and a permanent plane solitary wave exists in a fertile medium. Moreover, a multidimensional solitary wave pattern can also be achieved theoretically by adjusting the initial transverse fuel distribution. This mechanism makes a nuclear reactor obviously stable. More importantly it can improve significantly utilization of nuclear fuel.