Presentation

Eric Dumonteil
I am a nuclear physicist specialized in particle transport theory and simulation, particularly interested in the modeling of critical phenomena and branching processes. Since 2020, I am working as Research Director at the Nuclear Physics Department of IRFU, an institute belonging to the Fundamental Research Division of CEA Saclay (Université Paris-Saclay). I am also a CERN member (being part of the Geant4 collaboration), and I belong to the french GdR "Branchement". Concerning academic-related aspects, in 2019 I have been nominated professor at INSTN, where I am teaching neutron transport related courses mainly.


Contact information

Département de Physique Nucléaire (CEA/DRF/IRFU/DPhN)
Orme des Merisiers, Bâtiment 703, 91191 Gif/Yvette (France)
e-MAIL: eric.dumonteil at cea.fr

Research interests

My research is focused on statistical mechanics, neutron transport theory and the Monte Carlo simulation of particle transport. On the theoretical side, I am working on the modeling of branching Markovian processes, on Branching Brownian Motion, and on the theory of rare events. I also use the tools of Statistical Field Theory and of Quantum Field Theory to model noise phenomena associated to critical processes. On the numerical side, I have been implied in the development of MORET5, TRIPOLI-4, and Geant4 which are Monte-Carlo particle transport codes. I am particularly interested in criticality simulations for reactor core modeling, and shielding studies that makes an extensive use of variance reduction techniques. More recently, I started to get involve in Diffusion Monte Carlo to calculate fundamental and excited eigenstates of various quantum systems, as well as on a theoretical modeling of quantum mechanics using stochastic processes in the spirit of Nelson stochastic mechanics.

Keywords

Statistical Mechanics, Stochastic Transport Theory, Critical phenomena, Branching Processes, Monte-Carlo Simulations, Neutron Transport, Criticality, Shielding, Variance Reduction Techniques, Rare events, Particle Physics, Reactor Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Diffusion Monte-Carlo.

 

Curriculum

A short curriculum vitae (in french) can be downloaded here.
I hold an engineering diploma from ENSICAEN (2001), I was an "auditeur libre" at the theoretical physics Master of Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris) in 2003 and I graduated with a PhD in particle physics in 2004 (University of Caen), after 3 years being involved in the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC (I was part of the Quark-Gluon plasma team of CEA/DSM/IRFU).

Here is the pdf file of this work, as well as the final report: thesis,final report

In early 2014 I defended my HDR from Paris-Sud University (HDR stands for "Habiliation à Diriger des Recherches" and is a diploma that gives an affiliation to a University, Paris-Sud in my case, in order to be PhD advisor for example). The subject was linked to the generalization of the Boltzmann mean field equation to higher order moments, for branching Brownian motion and branching exponential flights. In particular, I have studied a "clustering" effect proper to neutron transport theory and its consequences on Monte-Carlo criticality simulations. This phenomenon is a particular effect of spatial correlation.

You will find here both the manuscript and the reviewers report: thesis,reviewer1,reviewer2,reviewer3

From 2005 to 2015 I worked for the Reactor Studies and Applied Mathematics Service of CEA, where I was an expert in statistical physics and in Monte-Carlo simulations. I was also in charge of the R&D part of the neutron transport simulation project of the Nuclear Energy Division (SIMU/SINET/MACOE).

In 2014 I won an Excellence Research Chair in "scientific computing"at "La Maison de la Simulation" (CNRS, INRIA, CEA and Versailles-Saint-Quentin University).

From 2015 to 2020 I have been working at IRSN, as deputy head of the Reactor Physics and Criticality Department of the Nuclear Safety Division (IRSN PSN-EXP/SNC), in charge of R&D activities, and in 2017 I also became the head of the newly created Neutronics Laboratory.

In 2020 I rejoined the Nuclear Physics Department (CEA/DRF/IRFU) of CEA Saclay, where I became Reasearch Director end of 2021.

Concerning academics related aspects, from 2012 to 2017 I was "maître de conférence" at INTSN where I have been nominated Professor in 2019. I am also a lecturer at Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay and at Ecole CentraleSupélec.

Late 2021 I became a Geant4 collaborator, thus becoming a member of the CERN organization.

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