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The spark of the Super: Teller–Ulam and the birth of the H-bomb—rivalry, credit, and legacy at 75 years
In early 1951, Los Alamos scientists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam devised a breakthrough that would lead to the hydrogen bomb [1]. Their design gave the United States an initial advantage in the Cold War, though comparable progress was soon achieved independently in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.
Jesse M. Brown, Devin P. Barry, Robert C. Block, Amanda Youmans, Hyun Choun, Adam Ney, Ezekiel Blain, Michael J. Rapp, Yaron Danon
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 6 | June 2024 | Pages 1155-1165
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2249786
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To resolve discrepancies in evaluated cross sections among major nuclear data libraries, energy-differential neutron transmission and radiative capture yield of 181Ta were measured from 0.15 to 100 keV using multiple sample thicknesses. The new measurements provide resolution such that the resolved resonance region (RRR) can be evaluated up to at least 2.5 keV and the unresolved resonance region can be evaluated up to at least 100 keV. The transmission and capture yield measurements were modeled using resonance parameters from three major libraries to assess the predictive capability of each. It was found that JENDL-5.0 performed best in the RRR. Because of the poor performance of the U.S. ENDF/B evaluation, it is recommended that ENDF/B be reevaluated for 181Ta.