| |
| All these processes, proceeding through microseconds,
prepared Mike for thermonuclear burning. Now the escaping X-radiation
of the fissioning sparkplug
heated the compressed deuterium at its boundaries; the increasing thermal
motion of the deuterium nuclei pushed them together until they passed
the
barrier of electrostatic repulsion between them and came within range
of the nuclear strong force, at which point they began to fuse. Some
fused
to form a helium nucleus — an alpha particle — with the release
of a neutron, the alpha and the neutron sharing an energy of 3.27 MeV(1).
The neutron passed through the electrified mass of fusing deuterons
and escaped, but the positively charged alpha dumped its energy into
the
heating deuterium mass and helped heat it further. |
| |
| Other deuterium nuclei fused to form a tritium nucleus with the release
of a proton, the triton and the proton sharing 4.03 MeV(2).
The positively charged proton dumped more energy into the deuterium
mass. The tritium nucleus fused in turn with another deuterium nucleus
to form an alpha particle and a high-energy neutron that shared 17.59 MeV(3).
The 14 MeV neutrons from this reaction began to escape the hot,
compressed deuterium plasma and encountered the U238 nuclei of the
vaporized uranium pusher. U238 fissions when it captures neutrons with
energies above 1 MeV; so the U238 of the uranium pusher began
to fission then under the intense neutron bombardment, flooding more
X rays back into the deuterium mass from the outside just as the sparkplug
fission reaction was radiating them from the inside, trapping the deuterium
between two violent walls of heat and pressure. Deuterium-bred tritium
fused with tritium as well, producing a helium nucleus and two neutrons
that shared 11.27 MeV of energy(4). At lower orders
of probability, deuterium captured a neutron and bred tritium(5);
deuterium-bred helium fused with deuterium and made heavy [ordinary]
helium plus a highly energetic proton(6), or captured a
neutron and bred tritium plus a proton(7). All these reactions
contributed to the force of the Mike explosion. |
| |
| Source: Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995: 507. |
| |
