Tuesday, 25 February 2020

spectroscopy - What is the spectrum of a nuclear bomb in a vacuum?


This question about 'nukes in space' mentions that the two forms of energy released from a nuclear bomb come from neutrons and photons (the latter about 104 times the former).


It's mentioned that the photons are in the form of X-rays, but what is the actual spectrum of the light emitted? How much of the light comes from



  • the fission (assume pure-fission bomb for simplicity) where 239Pu is split into a mish-mash of lighter elements (is this energy quantized, i.e. has "peaks"?)

  • black-body emission (the results being heated to 10x K; is this continuous or does strange stuff happen at very high temperatures?)

  • extremely short-lived fission products





No comments:

Post a Comment

Understanding Stagnation point in pitot fluid

What is stagnation point in fluid mechanics. At the open end of the pitot tube the velocity of the fluid becomes zero.But that should result...