Fission Product Ratios as Treaty Monitoring Discriminants
The International Monitoring System (IMS) of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is currently under construction. The IMS is intended for monitoring of nuclear explosions. The radionuclide branch of the IMS monitors the atmosphere for short-lived radioisotopes indicative of a nuclear weapon test, and includes field collection and measurement stations, as well as laboratories to provide reanalysis of the most important samples and a quality control function. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington hosts the United States IMS laboratory, with the designation “RL16.” Since acute reactor containment failures and chronic reactor leakage may also produce similar isotopes, it is tempting to compute ratios of detected isotopes to determine the relevance of an event to the treaty or agreement in question. In this paper we will note several shortcomings of simple isotopic ratios: (1) fractionation of different chemical species, (2) difficulty in comparing isotopes within a single element, (3) the effect of unknown decay times. While these shortcomings will be shown in the light of an aerosol sample, several of the problems extend to xenon isotopic ratios. The result of the difficulties listed above is that considerable human expertise will be required to convert a simple mathematical ratio into a criterion which will reliably categorize an event as ‘reactor’ or ‘weapon’.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 947910
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-49331; NN2003000
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 276(2):483-487, Journal Name: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 276(2):483-487
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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