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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.
John A. Adams, R. R. Roy
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 1977 | Pages 41-47
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27002
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Protons from 252Cf fission have been studied to determine their origin by using a ΔE, E detector particle telescope. Both fission- and nonfission-related events are discussed as possible sources of the observed proton energy spectrum. The increased yield of low-energy protons, which peak at ∼3.2 MeV, seems to be due mainly to background (α,p) reactions. Evidence of polar proton emission is discussed and gives an estimated polar proton emission yield of 2.83 ± 0.18 × 10−5 per fission, with a most probable energy of 10.0 ± 0.2 MeV and full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 7.6 ± 0.2 MeV. The yield of tripartition fission-related protons was then estimated to be 3.50 ± 0.20 × 10−5 per fission, with a most probable energy of 6.6 ± 0.2 MeV and an FWHM of 7.0 ± 0.2 MeV