Concentration phenomena for neutronic multigroup diffusion in random environments

Abstract: We study the asymptotic behavior of the principal eigenvalue of a weakly coupled, cooperative linear elliptic system in a stationary ergodic heterogeneous medium. The system arises as the so-called multigroup diffusion model for neutron flux in nuclear reactor cores, the principal eigenvalue determining the criticality of the reactor in a stationary state. Such systems have been well-studied in recent years in the periodic setting, and the purpose of this work is to obtain results in random media. Our approach connects the linear eigenvalue problem to a system of quasilinear viscous Hamilton-Jacobi equations. By homogenizing the latter, we characterize the asymptotic behavior of the eigenvalue of the linear problem and exhibit some concentration behavior of the eigenfunctions.

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The authors study the behavior, as \(\varepsilon\rightarrow 0,\) of the principal eigenvalue and eigenfunction of the weakly coupled, cooperative elliptic system \[ -\varepsilon^2\mathrm{tr}(A_{\alpha}(\frac{x}{\varepsilon},\omega)D^2\varphi_{\alpha}^\varepsilon) +\varepsilon b_{\alpha}(\frac{x}{\varepsilon},\omega)D\varphi_{\alpha}^\varepsilon +\sum_{\beta=1}^mC_{\alpha\beta}(\frac{x}{\varepsilon},\omega)\varphi_{\beta}^\varepsilon \] \[ =\lambda_{\varepsilon}\sum_{\beta=1}^m\sigma_{\alpha\beta}(\frac{x}{\varepsilon},\omega) \varphi_{\beta}^\varepsilon \text{ in }U \,(\alpha=1,\dots,m), \] subject to the conditions \[ \varphi_{\alpha}^\varepsilon>0 \text{ in }U \,\text{ and }\,\varphi_{\alpha}^\varepsilon=0 \text{ on }\, \partial U \;(\alpha=1,\dots,m). \] Here \(m\) is a positive integer and \( U\subseteq \mathbb R^d \) is a bounded domain. The unknowns are the eigenvalue \(\lambda_\varepsilon=\lambda_\varepsilon(\omega,U) \) and the eigenfunctions \( (\varphi_{\alpha}^\varepsilon(\cdot,\omega))_{1\leq\alpha\leq m},\) the coefficients \(A_{\alpha}\), \(b_{\alpha}\), \(C_{\alpha\beta}\), and \(\sigma_{\alpha\beta}\) are functions on \(\mathbb R^d\times\Omega\). The main result is the assertion that there exists a deterministic constant \(\lambda\) such that, as \(\varepsilon\rightarrow 0\), \(\lambda_\varepsilon\rightarrow\bar{\lambda}\) almost surely in \(\Omega\), together with a characterization of \(\bar{\lambda}\).

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