Nuclear explosions: a study

Abstract

The incident neutron energy dependence of the neutron multiplication rate constant α is studied for 235U- and 239Pu-based nuclear explosions. At high neutron energy, α comes out to be about 10 generations/shake for both 235U and 239Pu. In addition, the photon gas model seems to hold well for the very early stage of a nuclear explosion as one is able to reproduce the yield (20.4 ± 2.4) kiloton for the Trinity test.

On the nuclear explosion fireball

“…The radius goes from 11.1 m to 185 m over the time interval 0.1 ms to 62 ms (see figure 1). If the fireball in this interval is assumed to be a gas of photons, then using the energy density formula (u = aT 4 , a = constant), test yield [3] and data from [2], one can calculate the instantaneous temperature of the fireball [1] as given in table 2.…”

“…Nuclear explosions are extremely complicated phenomena and need very advanced physics and mathematics to study them thoroughly. Though the very initial stage of a nuclear explosion can be approximated by a gas of photons [1], but the reality is that the nuclear fireball is a complex system consisting of bomb material, fission fragments, neutrons, photons, free electrons, and ions, and as the fireball expands rapidly the particle gas starts to dominate. As far as the literature survey is concerned there is no declassified information about the value of radiation energy and the particle gas energy at different times of the evolution of the fireball, which obviously is a difficult task to predict.…”

Reply to Comment on ‘On the nuclear explosion fireball’

“…Regarding the gamma radiation wavelength here (which is the wavelength of the radiation emitted with maximum intensity), it should be noted that the result is obtained by using the temperature of the fireball T which in turn has been calculated (via energy density formula) by treating the fireball just consisting of a gas of photons and hence the total yield of the explosion (due to photons only) [2]. For the wavelength calculation, Wien's displacement law is used.…”