SMuK 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 2: New Verification Concepts and Forensics

AGA 2.4: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 22. März 2023, 16:05–16:25, HSZ/0004

Forensic Measurements for Nuclear Archaeology - A New Approach — •Lukas Rademacher and Malte Göttsche — Nuclear Verification and Disarmament, RWTH Aachen University

Nuclear archaeology is a field of study aiming to reconstruct the production and removal history of weapons-usable fissile materials and thus create estimates of existing stockpiles. 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 also improving production estimates. The analysis required for this is however much more complex, so we developed a suitable procedure using mathematical and computational methods that we will present in the form of a first feasibility study.

This new analysis methodology can be used for various applications ranging from crosschecking fissile material declarations for international confidence building, to a combination with specially designed and installed reactor monitor tags to contribute to the verification of the proposed Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, to reassessing potentially highly uncertain early plutonium production estimates on a purely national basis.