Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 3: Nuclear Verification and Disarmament Research

AGA 3.3: Talk

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 11:30–12:00, H3

Designing a Template Information Barrier Based on Low-resolution Gamma Spectroscopy — •Malte Göttsche and Alex Glaser — Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University

Passive gamma-ray spectroscopy has been employed to uniquely identify unique items containing special nuclear materials such as plutonium and highly enriched uranium. This project assesses the performance of a gamma spectrometry warhead authentication system that is based on low-resolution measurements, which by design reduce the extent of revealed sensitive information. Standard gamma spectrometry can, however, only confirm that the interrogated item's surface corresponds to a pre-recorded radiation signature or "template." In order to also assess whether the characteristics of the item's mass corresponds to the mass of the template, a polyethylene plate can be placed in front of the detector. This produces 2.22 MeV gammas from (n,g) reactions in hydrogen in addition to the gamma spectrum of the inspected item. This presentation examines the system's capabilities to detect various evasion attempts.