A closer look at Trinitite below 40 keV

[Sparky]

I've been looking (for 71 hours!) at a piece of Trinitite with a borrowed SiPIN system. It gives more details of the U x-rays seen in the Pittauervova paper's HpGe spectrum. I assume these x-rays are coming from ("associated with") the the decay of unburned Pu239.

I found a paper that details a very interesting analysis of Trinitite using SEM and SIMS and XRF imaging (these boys have all the toys!).
Its focus is "attribution", i.e. how a forensic analysis might be used to figure out who is responsible for a terrorist type nuclear attack.

In table 2 of the paper it lists the relative activity of various nuclides. Pu239 is shown as quite active (129 keV), but with poor counting efficiency. It has some fantastic sections showing the basic structure and make-up of a Trinitite sample.


https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/107/47/20207.full.pdf

Sparky

[Go-Figure]

One day I will test again my Type-5 Trintite, your result is very interesting and I will give a good a read to the paper, thanks for that!

Massimo