SKM 2021 – scientific programme

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 7: Nuclear Archeology

AGA 7.1: Talk

Friday, October 1, 2021, 11:15–11:45, H8

Forensic measurements for nuclear archaeology - A new approach — •Lukas Rademacher and Malte Göttsche — Nuclear Verification and Disarmament, RWTH Aachen

The availability of effective and widely accepted verification tools is an essential prerequisite for any lasting and successful effort towards nuclear disarmament. One such verification toolbox is nuclear archaeology - it aims to reconstruct the production and removal history of weapons-usable fissile materials. A central method of nuclear archaeology is the deduction of a shut-down reactor’s lifetime plutonium production using samples taken from within its core. Specific isotopic ratios are measured to assess neutron fluence and thus estimate plutonium production.

We will present a new approach aiming to strengthen the potential of the method by analyzing a larger set of measured isotopic ratios. This allows for the reconstruction of operational histories of the considered reactor in more detail , therefore providing more information to cross-check declarations. However, this requires a considerably more complex analysis. A feasibility study for this new approach using state-of-the-art mathematical and computational methods has been conducted and will be presented, showing that it is indeed possible to reconstruct additional information.