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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
A. Olson, A. Ciabatti, Y. Hristova, P. Kuchment, J. Ragusa, M. Allmaras
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 184 | Number 1 | September 2016 | Pages 125-150
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-66
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In Allmaras et al. [Inverse Prob. Imaging, Vol. 7, No. 1, p. 47 (2013)], we present the mathematical foundations for the passive detection of small low-emission radioactive sources buried in background noise using Compton gamma cameras. Here, we apply these techniques to the detection of small amounts of special nuclear material in various cargo container geometries. Simulated two-dimensional data are used. We demonstrate the feasibility of such an approach using various realistic cargo container loadings and assess the effect of angular detection errors in Compton cameras.