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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.
Takashi Nakamura, Hideo Hirayama
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 59 | Number 3 | March 1976 | Pages 237-245
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A26822
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The spectra of bremsstrahlung from very thick lead targets bombarded by 15-, 20-, and 25-MeV electrons from a linear accelerator were measured with activation detectors. This activation method has the advantage of being available for measuring the spectrum of a bremsstrahlung burst and being suitable for determining the distribution of the photon energy spectrum in the medium. By use of the most accurate photonuclear cross-section data available, the bremsstrahlung spectra were evaluated with the LYRA unfolding code. The evaluated spectra were in good agreement with the calculated spectra, especially at 9 deg for 15- and 20-MeV electrons. It is concluded that the spectrometry of bremsstrahlung radiation by activation detectors can satisfactorily represent the variation of bremsstrahlung spectrum as a function of incident electron energy. The spectra obtained by this method are very much dependent on the photo-nuclear cross-section data of activation detectors. This activation experiment can be used as an integral experiment to evaluate photonuclear cross-section data by coupling with the reference calculations.