NIF, high-energy density science and nuclear forensics featured at AAAS

"It’s our goal to explain the world in ways that have never been done before."

With those words, Edward Moses, principal associate director for LLNL’s National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Principal Directorate, began explaining NIF’s mission to a symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this past weekend.

Moses told his audience that in addition to its national security and energy security missions, NIF will be able to explore new areas of nuclear science, including nucleosynthesis, the dynamics of nuclei in excited states, and astrophysical phenomena such as supernovae, black holes and the properties of the interior of large planets.

He said NIF currently is 96 percent completed, and will transition into a national user facility during the next few years following project completion early next year. Of the approximately 700 experimental shots to be conducted annually on NIF, Moses predicted that about 20 percent of them will be devoted to peer-reviewed basic science. According to Moses, "NIF’s capabilities in high-energy density physics can play a key role in international science."

Joining Moses on the panel was NIF’s Chief Scientist John Lindl, who outlined the basics of using lasers to achieve fusion.

Lindl explained that NIF’s success thus far owes much to the Lab’s experience with the 10-beam Nova laser, which operated from 1984 until 1999.

Based on those results, plus simulations performed on the Lab’s supercomputers, and advances in diagnostic capabilities, Lindl expressed confidence that NIF researchers are on the right path to design fusion targets that meet performance requirements.

Furthermore, Lindl said, "The initial ignition experiments in 2010-11 will only begin to explore NIF's potential." He said that much higher yields may ultimately be possible using NIF's capability for producing over 3 megaJoules of green light. And he laid out several alternative methods that could also be used to achieve ignition. They include techniques known as polar direct drive and fast ignition, which potentially can produce higher energy gain and more energy output.

It won’t happen overnight, he said.

According to Lindl, "Ignition is a grand challenge undertaking. It is likely to take a few years to achieve the required level of precision and understanding of the physics and technology needed to meet all of our expectations."

The panel also included Raymond Jeanloz, a professor of earth and planetary science at UC-Berkeley, who said he is eager to begin scientific experiments on NIF.

He plans to use the laser beams to create intense shock waves to create what he termed "a new form of chemistry."

For example, NIF’s lasers could create sufficient pressures to melt diamonds, or create metallic helium.

Other speakers included Robert McCrory of the University of Rochester’s OMEGA laser program, Hiroshi Azechi of Osaka University’s Fast Ignition Realization Experiment Project (Firex), and Mike Dunne, who heads the UK’s proposed High-Power Laser for Energy Research Project (HiPER.)

The symposium was organized by LLNL’s Richard Boyd and Karl van Bibber.

The subject switched from lasers to the smuggling of nuclear materials, during a separate AAAS symposium entitled "Atomic Detectives: Nuclear Forensics and Combating Illicit Trafficking" whose speakers included former LLNL Lab Director Michael May, as well as the Global Security directorate’s David Smith.

May released a report entitled "Nuclear Forensics: Role, State of the Art, Program Needs" prepared by a joint panel of the American Physical Society and AAAS.

May, now with Stanford University, chaired the panel that authored the report. Ian Hutcheon, the Deputy Director of the Laboratory’s Glenn T. Seaborg Institute was a co-author. Former LLNL researchers Jay Davis, Bill Dunlop, and Philip Coyle were also members.

Summarizing the report’s findings, May said the United States must extend its ongoing technical initiatives around the world to formulate an international response to counter acts of nuclear terrorism. Technical assistance, including upgraded field equipment, should be combined with access and linkage to databases to enable analyses of potential and actual incidents. Realistic training exercises are equally important. The report also warns that the U.S. is in danger of running short of skilled personnel unless students are encouraged to enter relevant fields of nuclear science, and receive training at national laboratories.

Smith began his presentation by defining nuclear forensics as "the analysis of nuclear or radioactive materials to identify their source, determine the point of origin and routes of transit, and ultimately to contribute evidence for nuclear attribution."

He said it is currently unlikely that non-state entities, such as terrorist groups, have the capabilities to enrich uranium or breed plutonium. But the danger is that they might be able to acquire such materials.

Smith and other LLNL scientists are addressing nuclear forensic security needs in Russia and eastern Europe, as well as the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. And while researching conditions in Tajikistan, Smith was able to document an inventory of poorly secured uranium ore concentrate (or yellowcake) as well as an unguarded former uranium mill.

However, he said, some progress is being made.

An ad-hoc organization known as the Nuclear Smuggling International Technical Working Group was formed in the mid-1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union, to utilize nuclear forensics best practice in the fight against the smuggling of nuclear or radioactive materials. Even though it is an informal organization not affiliated with any government or national agency, it has attracted more than 30 nations and organizations to 12 annual meetings and Smith expects even more participation at its next conference in Sofia, Bulgaria later this year.

Nevertheless, Smith said nuclear forensics is only one component of a comprehensive strategy to counter the WMD threat. Others include port-of-entry monitoring, improved technologies for radiation detection, nuclear safeguards, and emerging secure civilian nuclear power initiatives.