Nuclear Weapons Research Articles

Preliminary Study on Electrical Wire Explosion Utilized in Pyro-breaker

Quench protection system (QPS) is critical for ensuring the safety operation of superconducting magnets in nuclear fusion devices, while the pyro-breaker is wildly used in QPS for backup protection. This paper discusses the feasibility of using Underwater Electrical Wire Explosion (UEWE) to drive pyro-breaker. Firstly, the overall structure and the driving mechanism of arc contact of pyro-breaker are analyzed. Secondly, the detonation pressure required for contact breaking is measured by experiment. Then a microsecond-level UEWE experimental platform was established to test the discharge characteristics and shock wave intensity during the electrical explosion process. Finally, the detonation pressure generated by UEWE is measured and compared with contact driving mechanism of pyro-breaker. The experiment demonstrates that the UEWE has sufficient potential for replacing the explosive and driving the pyro-breaker. This study provides a new pathway for the design of the pyro-breaker.

Polynesia against Paris: Indigenous Anti-Nuclear Literature and the French Colonial Origins of Oceanian Reintegration

Abstract: This essay examines Francophone and Anglophone Indigenous Oceanian literature and art to argue that through the predominantly Polynesian response to French nuclear testing in Te Ao Mā’ohi (French Polynesia), French colonialism has inadvertently generated one key cultural movement toward post-colonial Oceanian reintegration—one that extends well beyond the Francophone Pacific. The essay first examines the prose fiction of Chantal Spitz, Rai a Mai [aka Michou Chaze], and Déwé Gorodé to understand Te Ao Mā’ohi’s (French Polynesia's) and Kanaky’s (New Caledonia's) shared experiences of French colonialism. It then contrasts the same authors’ treatment of French nuclear weapons testing, which was the central crisis in Mā’ohi literature but which was marginal to early Kanak prose fiction. The essay then brings this Francophone literature in direct conversation with the hitherto unexamined specifically anti-French dimension of better-known Anglophone Oceanian works from authors Witi Ihimaera (Maori) and Albert Wendt (Samoan) and visual artists Ralph Hotere (Maori) and Hiko‘ula Hanapi (Hawaiian). The essay then demonstrates how this mutual Francophone-Anglophone Polynesian response to French colonialism created a Polynesia-centric anti-French-colonial process of Oceanian reintegration, and how that engine of Pacific reintegration later encompassed Kanaky and generated new cultural and activist connections between the Francophone and Anglophone Pacific.

Assessment of non-destructive nuclear and non-nuclear asphalt density testing devices for Australian road construction

ABSTRACT Non-nuclear density gauges, also known as Pavement Quality Indicators (PQIs), offer several advantages over widely used destructive test methods and nuclear density gauges (NDGs) for asphalt density measurement. Replacing NDGs with PQIs would simplify regulatory requirements and reduce the cost and complexity of in-situ asphalt density measurement. This is due to the absence of nuclear materials and the ability of PQIs to provide measurements rapidly. However, PQIs have not gained widespread use in Australia due to concerns regarding accuracy. This work assesses the suitability of PQIs for both acceptance and quality control testing by analysing a dataset collected over an extended period and across a wide range of construction sites in Australia. Accuracy was evaluated based on the strength of the relationship between gauge measurements and core density results. Although some evidence supporting the use of PQIs for quality control purposes has been found, their use for acceptance testing remains unwarranted. Recommendations for establishing standard testing methods are provided to encourage wider adoption of PQIs.

Structural design and test of superconducting magnet coil for the cooling storage ring external-target experiment

Abstract Heavy ion collision is an unique method for studying cold and dense nuclear matter in labs. The Cooling Storage Ring (CSR) External-target Experiment (CEE) at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), China, is the first multi-purpose nuclear physics experimental device to operate in the GeV energy range. One of the key parts is a large acceptance dipole magnet, which is used to bend particles so that they can be detected by various detectors. A superconducting coil with the size of 3.1 m ×3.6 m × 2 m was designed to verify the rationality of the scheme. Although the coil-dominated superconducting magnet with NbTi has been used to reduce the weight and size of the magnet, large deformation and stress will occur in the cooldown and excitation stages owing to the large volume and weight. Therefore, it is crucial to design a reasonable structure to ensure the strength of the magnet and prevent the magnet from interfering with other components due to large deformation, and even the possibility of quenching. A truss supporter is proposed for the support of the superconducting coil. In this study, the structural design of the cold mass of a superconducting magnet is introduced, and its mechanical behaviors during cooldown and excitation are analyzed in detail. To verify the feasibility of the coil design and process route, a sub-size prototype was manufactured and tested at 4.2 K and reached the design current successfully.

Dracarys: Unleashing the Lessons of Nuclear Conflict from House of the Dragon

Given increasing nuclear-related dangers in the real world, which pose an existential threat to humanity, teaching nuclear theory to students is critically important. I argue that the hit TV show House of the Dragon can be utilized to educate students on the nuances of nuclear theory in a fun and engaging—but also surprisingly rigorous—way. In particular, the fire-breathing weapons of mass destruction in the Game of Thrones prequel show illustrate five key lessons about nuclear conflict dynamics. First, nuclear war is incredibly destructive and causes significant psychological trauma to survivors of nuclear attacks. Second, nuclear weapons can induce caution in leaders and deter major war. Third, while a powerful force, nuclear deterrence can fail due to irrational leaders, principle-agent problems, and accidents. Fourth, nuclear compellence is harder than nuclear deterrence and can backfire. Fifth, nuclear superiority beyond a secure second-strike capability provides little strategic benefit. In sum, House of the Dragon offers a more modern option than classics like Dr. Strangelove to teach about nuclear theory.

The Nazi Bomb Project: A Case Study of Value Neutrality in Science and Technology

Scientists in Nazi Germany attempted but failed to build an atomic bomb or working nuclear reactor during the years of the Second World War, 1939-1945. Can philosophical meaning be drawn from this history? The history of the Nazi scientists and nuclear fission raises important issues concerning the alleged value-neutrality of scientific research and technological development. We can also ask whether there is an ethical dimension to the failure of the Nazi bomb project. Did the scientists who worked in the Third Reich make a moral decision not to complete the development of a working nuclear reactor and/or a usable nuclear explosive device? In this essay, I argue that Werner Heisenberg and other Nazi scientists fell victim to a value-neutral conception of science that led them to make unethical choices in support of the Nazi regime. The story of the Nazi bomb project exemplifies a more general philosophical point: if scientists fail to understand the social, political, and cultural context of their research they will be vulnerable to ethically wrong decisions.

Investigation of Radioxenon Probability Density Functions at IMS Radionuclide Stations Using a Monte Carlo Method for Background Estimation

Abstract The International Monitoring System, the primary means of verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, monitors the planet for any sign of a nuclear explosion. Regarding the International Monitoring System radionuclide stations, it is known that radioxenon released from nuclear facilities such as medical isotope production facilities and nuclear power plants influences the stations. For the purposes of monitoring nuclear explosions, it is important to better understand the radioxenon background based on these nuclear facilities. The probability density functions of background activity concentration at IMS radionuclide stations are estimated using a Monte Carlo method based on emissions from known nuclear facilities and source receptor sensitivity data. This paper describes two case studies of radioxenon detections at radionuclide stations applying the developed approach. This method could be one of several prospective approaches to predict the activity concentrations of isotopes of radioxenon at radionuclide stations in Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO’s) prototype xenon background estimation tool software. It can also be used in characterization of CTBT-relevant nuclear events for expert technical analysis. Plain Language Summary Civil nuclear power stations and medical isotope production facilities release radioisotopes of xenon during their normal operations. These emissions would make it harder to detect xenon produced from any nuclear weapon test that might occur. A method is described that starts with information about civil releases and produces a statistical description of the concentrations of isotopes measured at stations designed to detect nuclear tests. This information makes it possible to enhance nuclear explosion detection performance.

The Russia-Ukraine War and Nuclear Weapons: Evaluating Familiar Insights

ABSTRACT This article examines the nuclear dimension of the war in Ukraine. It makes two arguments. First, our knowledge of the nuclear world is fundamentally limited and so any inferences we draw from the war in Ukraine should be tentative. Second, what we are observing in Ukraine appears at least consistent with basic and well-established theoretical insights about nuclear weapons: a) that nuclear weapons deter; b) that nuclear weapons enable; and c) that these political effects of nuclear weapons emerge from genuine nuclear risks. This article lays out these insights and demonstrates their consistency with existing empirical evidence from the war in Ukraine. Overall, therefore, it does not appear that the war in Ukraine should yet cause us to fundamentally rethink our understanding of nuclear weapons in major ways.

The Psychology of Deterrence: Using AI with Mind Genomics to Broadcast the Seriousness of the Response to Nations Promising to Use Nuclear Weapons

The Psychology of Deterrence: Using AI with Mind Genomics to Broadcast the Seriousness of the Response to Nations Promising to Use Nuclear Weapons

Echoes of a Cold War

The Kara Sea was an area of radionuclide contamination as a result of nuclear weapons testing, since it is located in close proximity to the nuclear test site on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The vertical distribution of 137Cs and 210Pb in 15 sediment cores from the sea made it possible to reconstruct the chronology of 137Cs entry into marine sediments. The reconstruction was based on the age-depth model RUS2023 (Rusakov et al., 2024) for 210Pbex, taking into account the grain-size composition and sorption capacity of sediments. Our study showed that higher 137Cs concentrations in sediments of the Novaya Zemlya Trough correspond to the time of active nuclear weapons testing in 1961–63 (about 9.0 ± 1.6 Bq kg‒1), as well as in estuarine sediments of the Yenisei Bay in 1986 (85.2 ± 3.2 Bq kg‒1). The abnormally high flux in 1980s represents the superposition of 137Cs fluxes as a result of global fallout (Chernobyl trace) and as a result of the release of radionuclide from regional source located in the Yenisei River catchment. Both of these events are associated with increased the sedimentation and mass accumulation rates of marine sediments. In 1961‒63, this was a consequence of the release of sediment into the atmosphere due to nuclear explosions, and in the 1980s, as a result of an increase in sediment supply with river runoff. Currently, against the backdrop of a decrease in sediment fluxes into the sea, Novaya Zemlya and Yenisei River remain the main sources of 137Cs supply to marine sediments. Background values for recent sediments in the Kara Sea are <2.0 Bq kg‒1.

Experimental study on the critical current in highly flexible REBCO cables under copper tube compaction

The Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) is developing the high-current REBCO cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC) for use in the Central Solenoid (CS) coil of the next generation nuclear fusion device. The aim is to develop a CICC comprising six REBCO sub-cables to satisfy the requirements of operation with a current of around 46 kA and a peak field of up to 20 T. Sub-cables, as crucial components within CICCs, play a pivotal role in ensuring the mechanical support strength and current-carrying stability of the entire CS coil system. Therefore, a process was developed in this paper for the first time to make a sub-cable that meets the requirements by inserting the Highly Flexible REBCO Cable (HFRC) cable into a copper tube and compacting it. Meanwhile, the feasibility and reliability of this process were evaluated and optimized using experimental methods at 77 K and self-field. The result indicated that sub-cables without copper tape protection experienced a 25.42% degradation in critical current (IC). In contrast, when at least one protective layer of copper tape was used as a protective buffer between the HFRC cable and the inner wall of the copper tube, the IC remained stable within a 1% error margin after compaction. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of this sub-cable preparation process. Meanwhile, this compaction method provides a solid process foundation for the development of full-size conductors in future magnet applications.

United Kingdom nuclear weapons, 2024

ABSTRACT For decades, the United Kingdom has maintained a stockpile of approximately 225 nuclear warheads—up to 120 of which are available for delivery by four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. The stockpile is now increasing. The United Kingdom is currently building a new class of Dreadnaught-class submarines and developing a new nuclear warhead. In addition, it is expected that the United Kingdom will eventually increase the size of its arsenal and that Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath will regain a United States Air Force nuclear mission in the coming years. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, and senior research associates Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight. To see all previous Nuclear Notebook columns in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists dating back to 1987, go to https://thebulletin.org/nuclear-notebook/.

The entanglement of fusion energy research and bombs

ABSTRACT The recent achievement of fusion ignition—meaning more energy came out of a self-sustaining fusion reaction than was put in—at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility has brought to the fore long-simmering questions about whether certain experiments violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear explosions. Fusion research for peaceful use and military use are highly intertwined, despite attempts to cloak nuclear weapons with the aura of the so-called “peaceful atom.” Ignition has been achieved, but there is still a remarkable silence around whether pure fusion weapons—weapons that could kill large numbers of humans with neutron radiation but have blast effects much smaller than current thermonuclear weapons—are an objective of the overall program. Even if not an explicit objective, would they be built if fusion technology makes them feasible?

NEW FORMATS OF U.S. NUCLEAR ALLIANCES AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

NEW FORMATS OF U.S. NUCLEAR ALLIANCES AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Valuing life

Abstract The heart of prospect theory is the value function, proposing that the carriers of value are positive or negative changes from a reference point. Daniel Kahneman observed that if prospect theory had a flag, the value function would be drawn on it. The function is nonlinear, reflecting diminishing sensitivity to magnitude. When describing how human lives are valued, the function exposes profound incoherence. An individual life is highly valued and thus vigorously protected if it is the only life at risk. But that life loses its value when it is one of many endangered by a larger tragedy. Beyond this insensitivity, the function may actually decline when many lives at risk become mere numbers. The more who die, the less we care. Implications of this deadly ‘arithmetic of compassion’ for understanding and managing the risk from nuclear weapons are briefly discussed.

Forecasting Costs of U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Against a Major Nuclear Strike

ABSTRACT How many dollars would the United States need to spend on its ballistic missile defense (BMD) for each dollar the attacker spends to launch land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear warheads? A hypothetical scenario is analyzed in which the United States has a functioning BMD technology and enough interceptors to distribute them in a two-layer defense with the overall system efficiency of 90%, as targeted by U.S. war planners. It is assumed that the attacker has enough missiles to deliver a range between 500 and 6000 warheads to the continental United States. Results show that in the most optimistic case for the defender, with a very high individual interceptor kill effectiveness of 90% and with perfect decoy discrimination capability, the United States would need to spend on average 8 times more than the attacker, for a total cost between $60 billion and $500 billion. With a more realistic individual interceptor effectiveness of 50% and if the system is unable to discriminate against decoys, the United States would need to spend on average 70 times more, for a total cost between $430 billion and $5.3 trillion.

On the Brink: Reagan, Freeze, and the Nuclear Weapons Debate (1981-1984)

This article examines the nature of what motivated Reagan’s disarmament policy and what influence the Freeze movement had on it during his first term. It challenges the conventional view posited by scholars such as Lawrence S. Wittner and Angela Santese that early in his administration, Reagan was not interested in disarmament and that the Freeze movement, via public pressure and efforts in Congress, forced Reagan to soften his bellicose rhetoric and alter his approach to disarmament policy. By examining Freeze documents from the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO), executive branch documents from the Reagan Library, and the State Department Office of the Historian, as well as pertinent memoirs, this article offers a more complex and nuanced analysis of what drove Reagan’s thinking during this crucial period in the Cold War. In contrast to Wittner and Santese, it asserts that Reagan genuinely sought nuclear arms reductions throughout his first term and that any tactical adaptation in his approach resulted from an evolution in his mindset toward the Soviets caused by the cumulative effect of the attempt on his life, relationship with Ambassador Dobrynin, the Pentecostalist case, and NATO’s Able Archer exercise, and was only tangentially related to the Freeze movement.

The Swedish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 1961–1967: Political Time Orientation and Worldview

ABSTRACT The Swedish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND) fought the military’s plans to acquire Swedish nuclear weapons and protested the nuclear arms race, 1961–1967. This article presents SCND’s ideological orientation by focusing on temporalities. SCND saw the Second World War as a decisive event and tried to avert a crisis and a dystopia by manifesting remembrance of past nuclear detonations, and by representing a ‘desperate man’ who needed to act directly against nuclear weapons testing and research. As an opinion-forming force, SCND advocated international negotiations and rejected political initiatives regarding disarmament. Furthermore, SCND refused to take a position between West and East in the Cold War and SCND did not strive for a fundamental change of society, a utopia, which can be explained by SCND’s critique of ideology and from its temporal orientation rooted in the present. Nevertheless, the rise of imperialist-critical internationalism led to internal ideological conflicts, and the Swedish Campaign dissolved when only one of the goals was achieved: when Sweden abandoned the plans for nuclear weapons. Some members insisted on continuing the campaign to fight against not least imperialism, and SCND’s downfall in 1967 can be explained by its challenge to navigate an ideologically multifaceted landscape.

Australia’s bipolar approach to nuclear disarmament

ABSTRACT Australia is a strong supporter of global nuclear (and conventional) arms control and non-proliferation measures and has contributed significantly to their development; but it sees the world, strategically, through the eyes of a nuclear weapon state which, it believes, applies its nuclear deterrence doctrine also to the defence of Australia. It is thus effectively locked into what is essentially a nuclear weapon state’s view of the future that pays lip-service to nuclear disarmament as a distant ideal. Australian defence strategists routinely emphasise the importance of the US nuclear guarantee. Australia is though only likely to be attacked with nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear war in which the United States is already engaged. The concept of extended nuclear deterrence thus assumes an essentially circular character by purporting to protect Australia from the nuclear threat that Australia’s alliance with its provider invites. Meanwhile, Australia is one of the few countries in its own region that have yet to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). This paper argues that—US hostility to the Treaty notwithstanding—Australian membership of the TPNW would be consistent with its generally positive disarmament record and compatible with its alliance commitments.

Budgeting for defense in the United Kingdom

The recent growth in international tension has been associated with countries either increasing their military spending or discussing such increases—consequently, defense budgeting has attracted increased attention. This article reviews the U.K. defense budget in an historical context. It sets out the position in mid-2024 when the newly elected Labour Government commissioned a Strategic Defence Review. It summarizes the planning process and the government’s budget constraints; considers the issues involved in measuring the defense budget and making international comparisons; reviews trends in the defense budget; and the choices that need to be made between spending on personnel, conventional equipment, and nuclear weapons.