Postdetonation nuclear debris for attribution
| Autor: | J. Davis, R. M. Lindstrom, Cynthia J. Zeissler, D. E. Newbury, Albert J. Fahey |
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| Rok vydání: | 2010 |
| Předmět: |
Nuclear Weapons
Multidisciplinary History Trinitite Nuclear forensics Forensic Sciences Spectrometry Mass Secondary Ion chemistry.chemical_element Nuclear material Debris Plutonium chemistry Physical Sciences Forensic engineering Autoradiography Nuclear test Glass Attribution Electron Probe Microanalysis |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107:20207-20212 |
| ISSN: | 1091-6490 0027-8424 |
| DOI: | 10.1073/pnas.1010631107 |
| Popis: | On the morning of July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded in New Mexico on the White Sands Proving Ground. The device was a plutonium implosion device similar to the device that destroyed Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9 of that same year. Recently, with the enactment of US public law 111-140, the “Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act,” scientists in the government and academia have been able, in earnest, to consider what type of forensic-style information may be obtained after a nuclear detonation. To conduct a robust attribution process for an exploded device placed by a nonstate actor, forensic analysis must yield information about not only the nuclear material in the device but about other materials that went into its construction. We have performed an investigation of glassed ground debris from the first nuclear test showing correlations among multiple analytical techniques. Surprisingly, there is strong evidence, obtainable only through microanalysis, that secondary materials used in the device can be identified and positively associated with the nuclear material. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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