The DOE CTBT R&D effort at Livermore: calibrating to enhance international monitoring for clandestine nuclear explosions

Abstract

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was signed in 1996 and still needs to be ratified by the US, forbids all nuclear tests and creates an international monitoring system (IMS) to search for evidence of clandestine nuclear explosions. As specified in the treaty, the IMS will consist of 170 seismic stations that record underground elastic waves, 60 infrasound stations to record low-frequency sound waves in the air, 11 hydroacoustic stations to record underwater sound waves, and 80 radionuclide stations to record airborne radionuclide gases or particles. The International Data Center (IDC), located in Vienna, receives data from the IMS system and applies standard event screening criteria to any detected events with the objective of characterizing and highlighting events considered to be consistent with natural phenomena or a non-nuclear man made phenomena. The National Data Center (NDC) for each country must go a step further than the IDC and identify events as consistent with natural phenomena, non-nuclear manmade phenomena, or a banned nuclear test using these monitoring technologies.