Abstract
A series of electrostatic field measurements were made in the vicinity of nuclear explosions on the Nevada Proving Ground of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1952. Detonations with energy yields in the 20-kT range produced electric dipoles with the negative charge uppermost and with moments of a few coulomb kilometers. The electrical field produced by the nuclear cloud could be observed for several minutes after the explosion while the cloud moved upward through the troposphere to the vicinity of the tropopause. The estimated magnitude of the dipole moment of the cloud increased for several minutes as it moved upward. The results of the tests are in qualitative agreement with a γ-ray-Compton electron model of charge separation. Difficulties associated with quantitative predictions of the model are discussed. The passage over the instruments of a weakly radioactive cloud from the stem of the mushroom cloud in one test produced results that are interpreted as a perturbation of the normal air-earth current system.
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