The radioactive signature of the hydrogen bomb

It has long been supposed that the Teller-Ulam invention of February 1951, that made the construction of a full-scale fusion device feasible could be deduced from a careful analysis of the debris that scatters worldwide after an atmospheric test. This was part of the theme of an article in the January/February 1990 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists written by Daniel Hirsch and William G. Mathews.1 Their conclusion, arrived at to a large degree through interviews with Hans Bethe, was that the H-bomb secret was given to the Soviets, not through the spy Klaus Fuchs, but rather by carrying out Mike, the first test of a fusion device based on the Teller-Ulam ideas. The Bulletin article and an extended version of that paper issued by the Los Angeles based Committee to Bridge the Gap2 argue that the observation of the very high neutron fluencies in the explosion, which can be derived from the fallout composition, would lead a competent scientist to the trick. In the present paper it is proposed that this is not enough and a suggestion is given of what would complete the picture and together with the high fluencies more easily put the competent analyst on the right track. This suggestion is also supported by experimental data, not on Mike, but on a Chinese fusion explosion carried out in 1976. The present paper is based on a paper written, but not published, in 1981, soon after the mass spectroscopy data on the 1976 Chinese explosion were first published.

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