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A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs , a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits.
The Soviet Union demonstrated the power of the "staging" concept in October 1961 when they detonated the massive and unwieldy Tsar Bomba, a 50 Mt (210 PJ) hydrogen bomb which derived almost 97% of its energy from fusion rather than fission—its uranium tamper was replaced with one of lead shortly before firing, in an effort to prevent ...
This single test exposed the surrounding populations to varying levels of radiation. The fallout levels attributed to the Castle Bravo test are the highest in history. [61] [failed verification] Populations neighboring the test site were exposed to high levels of radiation resulting in mild radiation sickness of many (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea).
This casing, called the pusher, thus has three jobs: to keep the secondary cool; to hold it, inertially, in a highly compressed state; and, finally, to serve as the chief energy source for the entire bomb. The consumable pusher makes the bomb more a uranium fission bomb than a hydrogen fusion bomb. Insiders never used the term "hydrogen bomb". [29]
The hydrogen bomb primarily has 2 units: a nuclear bomb, which was the primary unit, and a secondary energy unit. The first stage of the hydrogen bomb resembled the layer-cake design, except the main difference is that the initiation is carried out by a nuclear device, rather than a conventional explosive. [10]
The explosion of the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb. The hydrogen bomb was the first device able to achieve fusion energy gain factor significantly larger than 1.. A fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state.
Sankey diagram of the laser energy to hohlraum x-ray to target capsule energy coupling efficiency. Note the "laser energy" is after conversion to UV, which loses about 50% of the original IR power. The conversion of x-ray heat to energy in the fuel loses another 90% – of the 1.9 MJ of laser light, only about 10 kJ ends up in the fuel itself.
First, we have to describe the system by the quantum numbers j, m j and parity instead of ℓ, m l and m s, as in the hydrogen–like atom. Since every even level includes only even values of ℓ, it includes only states of even (positive) parity. Similarly, every odd level includes only states of odd (negative) parity.