Timeline for Are multi-megaton antimatter induced fusion explosions theoretically possible?
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9 events
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| Aug 25, 2013 at 9:38 | answer | added | user23660 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 22:15 | comment | added | Hennes | Tritium is quite common compared to anti matter. And quite a lot of those few KG might end up in weapons. Even if only to boost the initial fission core. But lets move to The h-bar rather than create a long set of comments. | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 22:08 | comment | added | Abanob Ebrahim | @Hennes, that's great, thanks for the info. But IIRC, Tritium is considered very rare and only a few kilograms of it is made each year, so it shouldn't be considered available I think, so Li-DT is just nonsense. If I am not mistaken, Li-6 can produce Tritium by being bombarded by a neutron with any energy, so I was thinking if we could compensate the neutrons from the fission reaction by an external neutron source to produce "fresh" Tritium. The D-T reaction also produces an extra neutron, so it should look like a fission chain reaction. What do you think ? | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 22:02 | comment | added | Hennes | Yes. Lithium, Deuterium and Tritium. Lithium is used in traditional fusion devices to generate tritium. (H3 is expensive. H3 has a 12.3 year half life and H3 decays into He-3, which likes to absorb neutrons). For these reasons H3 is best made fresh. This can be done by bombarding lithium with neutrons. Li-6 seems to be the preferred choice for this. Li-6 + neutron -> H3 + He-4 + 4.78 MeV. The H3 can then undergo fusion with other H3 atoms). Li-7 can be used in the same way if you have higher energy neutrons and it releases an extra neutron. | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 21:45 | comment | added | Abanob Ebrahim | @Hennes, The first guess might be correct. But not the second since in the hypothetical bomb, explosive lenses are used to compress the fuel and collapse it into the antihydrogen pellet. I noticed something else, this research says pellets of Li-DT is used, which I don't really understand what this is. is it lithium, deuterium and tritium ? | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 21:21 | comment | added | Hennes | Just guessing here, but could it be that part of the difference between those 6.4kt and that 1kt is that a conventional fusion weapon has an influx of neutrons from the primary, boosting the reaction? Or that it is because the secondary gets compressed via a Teller-Ulam device rather than being torn apart from an internal matter-antimatter explosion? | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 18:34 | history | edited | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
point the link arXiv at the abstract page rather than the pdf
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| Aug 24, 2013 at 16:57 | comment | added | Abanob Ebrahim | Also how can pure deuterium fusion happen ? shouldn't be there tritium to fuse with the deuterium to make He ? | |
| Aug 24, 2013 at 13:53 | history | asked | Abanob Ebrahim | CC BY-SA 3.0 |