Ancient Indian and ancient Greek scientists assumed that matter consists of the smallest indivisible particles; they wrote about this in their treatises long before the beginning of our era. In the 5th century BC e. the Greek scientist Leucippus from Miletus and his student Democritus formulated the concept of the atom (Greek atomos “indivisible”). For many centuries, this theory remained rather philosophical, and only in 1803 the English chemist John Dalton proposed a scientific theory of the atom, confirmed by experiments.
At the end XIX beginning XX century This theory was developed in the works of Joseph Thomson, and then Ernest Rutherford, called the father of nuclear physics. It was found that the atom, contrary to its name, is not an indivisible finite particle, as previously stated. In 1911, physicists adopted Rutherford Bohr's "planetary" system, according to which an atom consists of a positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons orbiting around it. Later it was found that the nucleus is also not indivisible; it consists of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons, which, in turn, consist of elementary particles.
As soon as scientists became more or less clear about the structure of the atomic nucleus, they tried to fulfill the long-standing dream of alchemists - the transformation of one substance into another. In 1934, French scientists Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie, when bombarding aluminum with alpha particles (nuclei of a helium atom), obtained radioactive phosphorus atoms, which, in turn, turned into a stable isotope of silicon, a heavier element than aluminum. The idea arose to conduct a similar experiment with the heaviest natural element, uranium, discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth. After Henri Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium salts in 1896, this element seriously interested scientists.
E. Rutherford.
Mushroom of a nuclear explosion.
In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann conducted an experiment similar to the Joliot-Curie experiment, however, taking uranium instead of aluminum, they expected to obtain a new superheavy element. However, the result was unexpected: instead of superheavy elements, light elements from the middle part of the periodic table were obtained. After some time, physicist Lise Meitner suggested that the bombardment of uranium with neutrons leads to the splitting (fission) of its nucleus, resulting in the nuclei of light elements and leaving a certain number of free neutrons.
Further research showed that natural uranium consists of a mixture of three isotopes, the least stable of which is uranium-235. From time to time, the nuclei of its atoms spontaneously split into parts; this process is accompanied by the release of two or three free neutrons, which rush at a speed of about 10 thousand kms. The nuclei of the most common isotope-238 in most cases simply capture these neutrons; less often, uranium transforms into neptunium and then into plutonium-239. When a neutron hits a uranium-2 3 5 nucleus, it immediately undergoes a new fission.
It was obvious: if you take a large enough piece of pure (enriched) uranium-235, the nuclear fission reaction in it will proceed like an avalanche; this reaction was called a chain reaction. Each nucleus fission releases a huge amount of energy. It was calculated that with complete fission of 1 kg of uranium-235, the same amount of heat is released as when burning 3 thousand tons of coal. This colossal release of energy, released in a matter of moments, was supposed to manifest itself as an explosion of monstrous force, which, of course, immediately interested the military departments.
The Joliot-Curie couple. 1940s
L. Meitner and O. Hahn. 1925
Before the outbreak of World War II, highly classified work was carried out in Germany and some other countries to create nuclear weapons. In the United States, research referred to as the “Manhattan Project” began in 1941, and a year later the world’s largest research laboratory was founded in Los Alamos. Administratively, the project was subordinate to General Groves; scientific leadership was provided by University of California professor Robert Oppenheimer. The largest authorities in the field of physics and chemistry took part in the project, including 13 Nobel Prize laureates: Enrico Fermi, James Frank, Niels Bohr, Ernest Lawrence and others.
The main task was to obtain a sufficient amount of uranium-235. It was found that plutonium-2 39 could also serve as a bomb charge, so work was carried out in two directions at once. The accumulation of uranium-235 was to be carried out by separating it from the bulk of natural uranium, and plutonium could only be obtained as a result of a controlled nuclear reaction when uranium-238 was irradiated with neutrons. Enrichment of natural uranium was carried out at Westinghouse plants, and to produce plutonium it was necessary to build a nuclear reactor.
It was in the reactor that the process of irradiating uranium rods with neutrons took place, as a result of which part of the uranium-238 was supposed to turn into plutonium. The sources of neutrons in this case were fissile atoms of uranium-235, but the capture of neutrons by uranium-238 did not allow a chain reaction to begin. The discovery of Enrico Fermi helped solve the problem, who discovered that neutrons slowed down to a speed of 22 ms cause a chain reaction of uranium-235, but are not captured by uranium-238. As a moderator, Fermi proposed a 40-centimeter layer of graphite or heavy water, which contains the hydrogen isotope deuterium.
R. Oppenheimer and Lieutenant General L. Groves. 1945
Calutron in Oak Ridge.
An experimental reactor was built in 1942 under the stands of the Chicago Stadium. On December 2, its successful experimental launch took place. A year later, a new enrichment plant was built in the city of Oak Ridge and a reactor for the industrial production of plutonium was launched, as well as a calutron device for the electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes. The total cost of the project was about $2 billion. Meanwhile, at Los Alamos, work was underway directly on the design of the bomb and methods for detonating the charge.
June 16, 1945 near the city of Alamogordo in New Mexico during tests under code name Trinity (“Trinity”) detonated the world’s first nuclear device with a plutonium charge and an implosive (using chemical explosive for detonation) detonation circuit. The power of the explosion was equivalent to an explosion of 20 kilotons of TNT.
The next step was combat use nuclear weapons against Japan, which, after the surrender of Germany, alone continued the war against the United States and its allies. On August 6, a B-29 Enola Gay bomber, under the control of Colonel Tibbetts, dropped a Little Boy bomb on Hiroshima with a uranium charge and a cannon (using the connection of two blocks to create a critical mass) detonation circuit. The bomb was lowered by parachute and exploded at an altitude of 600 m from the ground. On August 9, Major Sweeney's Box Car dropped the Fat Man plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. The consequences of the explosions were terrible. Both cities were almost completely destroyed, more than 200 thousand people died in Hiroshima, about 80 thousand in Nagasaki. Later, one of the pilots admitted that at that second they saw the worst thing a person can see. Unable to resist the new weapons, the Japanese government capitulated.
Hiroshima after the atomic bombing.
The explosion of the atomic bomb put an end to the Second World War, but actually began a new Cold War, accompanied by an unbridled nuclear arms race. Soviet scientists had to catch up with the Americans. In 1943, the secret “laboratory No. 2” was created, headed by famous physicist Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov. Later the laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Atomic Energy. In December 1946, the first chain reaction was carried out at the experimental nuclear uranium-graphite reactor F1. Two years later, the first plutonium plant with several industrial reactors was built in the Soviet Union, and in August 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb with a plutonium charge, RDS-1, with a yield of 22 kilotons, was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.
In November 1952 on Enewetak Atoll in Pacific Ocean The United States detonated the first thermonuclear charge, the destructive power of which arose due to the energy released during nuclear fusion light elements into heavier ones. Nine months later, at the Semipalatinsk test site, Soviet scientists tested the RDS-6 thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb with a yield of 400 kilotons, developed by a group of scientists led by Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and Yuli Borisovich Khariton. In October 1961, the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested, was detonated at the Novaya Zemlya archipelago test site.
I. V. Kurchatov.
At the end of the 2000s, the United States had approximately 5,000 and Russia 2,800 nuclear weapons on deployed strategic delivery vehicles, as well as a significant number of tactical nuclear weapons. This supply is enough to destroy the entire planet several times over. Just one medium-power thermonuclear bomb (about 25 megatons) is equal to 1,500 Hiroshimas.
In the late 1970s, research was carried out to create a neutron weapon, a type of low-yield nuclear bomb. A neutron bomb differs from a conventional nuclear bomb in that it artificially increases the portion of the explosion energy that is released in the form of neutron radiation. This radiation affects enemy personnel, affects his weapons and creates radioactive contamination of the area, while the impact of the shock wave and light radiation is limited. However, not a single army in the world has ever adopted neutron charges.
Although the use of atomic energy has brought the world to the brink of destruction, it also has a peaceful aspect, although it is extremely dangerous when it gets out of control, this was clearly shown by the accidents at the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants. The world's first nuclear power plant with a capacity of only 5 MW was launched on June 27, 1954 in the village of Obninskoye Kaluga region(now the city of Obninsk). Today, more than 400 nuclear power plants are operated in the world, 10 of them in Russia. They generate about 17% of all global electricity, and this figure is likely to only increase. Currently, the world cannot do without the use of nuclear energy, but I would like to believe that in the future humanity will find a safer source of energy.
Control panel of a nuclear power plant in Obninsk.
Chernobyl after the disaster.
On August 12, 1953, at 7.30 am, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site, which had the service name “Product RDS-6c”. This was the fourth Soviet nuclear weapons test.
The beginning of the first work on the thermonuclear program in the USSR dates back to 1945. Then information was received about research being carried out in the United States on the thermonuclear problem. They were started on the initiative of the American physicist Edward Teller in 1942. The basis was taken by Teller’s concept of thermonuclear weapons, which in the circles of Soviet nuclear scientists was called a “pipe” - a cylindrical container with liquid deuterium, which was supposed to be heated by the explosion of an initiating device such as a conventional atomic bomb. Only in 1950 did the Americans establish that the “pipe” was futile, and they continued to develop other designs. But by this time, Soviet physicists had already independently developed another concept of thermonuclear weapons, which soon - in 1953 - led to success.
An alternative design for a hydrogen bomb was invented by Andrei Sakharov. The bomb was based on the idea of a “puff” and the use of lithium-6 deuteride. Developed at KB-11 (today the city of Sarov, former Arzamas-16, Nizhny Novgorod region), the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge was a spherical system of layers of uranium and thermonuclear fuel, surrounded by a chemical explosive.
To increase the energy release of the charge, tritium was used in its design. The main task in creating such a weapon was to use the energy released during the explosion of an atomic bomb to heat and ignite heavy hydrogen - deuterium, to carry out thermonuclear reactions with the release of energy that can support themselves. To increase the proportion of “burnt” deuterium, Sakharov proposed surrounding the deuterium with a shell of ordinary natural uranium, which was supposed to slow down the expansion and, most importantly, significantly increase the density of deuterium. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called “saccharization.”
Based on the results of work on the first hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and laureate of the Stalin Prize.
“Product RDS-6s” was made in the form of a transportable bomb weighing 7 tons, which was placed in the bomb hatch of a Tu-16 bomber. For comparison, the bomb created by the Americans weighed 54 tons and was the size of a three-story house.
To assess the destructive effects of the new bomb, a city of industrial and administrative buildings was built at the Semipalatinsk test site. In total, there were 190 different structures on the field. In this test, vacuum intakes of radiochemical samples were used for the first time, which automatically opened under the influence of a shock wave. In total, 500 different measuring, recording and filming devices installed in underground casemates and durable ground structures were prepared for testing the RDS-6s. Aviation technical support for the tests - measuring the pressure of the shock wave on the aircraft in the air at the time of the explosion of the product, taking air samples from the radioactive cloud, and aerial photography of the area was carried out by a special flight unit. The bomb was detonated remotely by sending a signal from a remote control located in the bunker.
It was decided to carry out an explosion on a steel tower 40 meters high, the charge was located at a height of 30 meters. The radioactive soil from previous tests was removed to a safe distance, special structures were built in their own places on old foundations, and a bunker was built 5 meters from the tower to install equipment developed at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences that recorded thermonuclear processes.
Installed on the field military equipment all branches of the military. During the tests, all experimental structures within a radius of up to four kilometers were destroyed. A hydrogen bomb explosion could completely destroy a city 8 kilometers across. The environmental consequences of the explosion were terrifying: the first explosion accounted for 82% strontium-90 and 75% cesium-137.
The power of the bomb reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and USSR.
The work to create the hydrogen bomb became the world's first intellectual "battle of wits" on a truly global scale. The creation of the hydrogen bomb initiated the emergence of completely new scientific directions - the physics of high-temperature plasma, the physics of ultra-high energy densities, and the physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time in human history, mathematical modeling was used on a large scale.
Work on the “RDS-6s product” created a scientific and technical basis, which was then used in the development of an incomparably more advanced hydrogen bomb of a fundamentally new type - a two-stage hydrogen bomb.
The hydrogen bomb of Sakharov’s design not only became a serious counter-argument in the political confrontation between the USA and the USSR, but also served as the reason for the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics in those years. It was after successful nuclear tests that the Korolev Design Bureau received an important government task to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver the created charge to the target. Subsequently, the rocket, called the “seven”, launched the first artificial Earth satellite into space, and it was on it that the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, launched.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
Our article is devoted to the history of creation and general principles synthesis of such a device, sometimes called hydrogen. Instead of releasing explosive energy by splitting the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium, it generates even more energy by fusing the nuclei of light elements (such as isotopes of hydrogen) into one heavy one (such as helium).
Why is nuclear fusion preferable?
In a thermonuclear reaction, which consists of the fusion of nuclei participating in it chemical elements, significantly more energy is generated per unit mass of a physical device than in a pure atomic bomb implementing a nuclear fission reaction.
In an atomic bomb, fissile nuclear fuel quickly, under the influence of the energy of detonation of conventional explosives, combines in a small spherical volume, where its so-called critical mass is created, and the fission reaction begins. In this case, many neutrons released from fissile nuclei will cause the fission of other nuclei in the fuel mass, which also release additional neutrons, leading to a chain reaction. It covers no more than 20% of the fuel before the bomb explodes, or perhaps much less if conditions are not ideal: as in the atomic bombs Little Kid dropped on Hiroshima and Fat Man that hit Nagasaki, efficiency (if such a term can be applied to them) apply) were only 1.38% and 13%, respectively.
The fusion (or fusion) of nuclei covers the entire mass of the bomb charge and lasts as long as neutrons can find thermonuclear fuel that has not yet reacted. Therefore, the mass and explosive power of such a bomb are theoretically unlimited. Such a merger can theoretically continue indefinitely. Indeed, the thermonuclear bomb is one of the potential doomsday devices that could destroy all human life.
What is a nuclear fusion reaction?
The fuel for the thermonuclear fusion reaction is hydrogen isotopes deuterium or tritium. The first differs from ordinary hydrogen in that its nucleus, in addition to one proton, also contains a neutron, and the tritium nucleus already has two neutrons. In natural water, there is one deuterium atom for every 7,000 hydrogen atoms, but out of its quantity. contained in a glass of water, as a result of a thermonuclear reaction, the same amount of heat can be obtained as from the combustion of 200 liters of gasoline. At a 1946 meeting with politicians, the father of the American hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, emphasized that deuterium provides more energy per gram of weight than uranium or plutonium, but costs twenty cents per gram compared with several hundred dollars per gram of fission fuel. Tritium does not occur in nature in a free state at all, so it is much more expensive than deuterium, with a market price of tens of thousands of dollars per gram, but the greatest amount of energy is released precisely in the fusion reaction of deuterium and tritium nuclei, in which the nucleus of a helium atom is formed and released neutron carrying away excess energy of 17.59 MeV
D + T → 4 He + n + 17.59 MeV.
This reaction is shown schematically in the figure below.
Is it a lot or a little? As you know, everything is learned by comparison. So, the energy of 1 MeV is approximately 2.3 million times more than that released during the combustion of 1 kg of oil. Consequently, the fusion of only two nuclei of deuterium and tritium releases as much energy as is released during the combustion of 2.3∙10 6 ∙17.59 = 40.5∙10 6 kg of oil. But we're talking about only about two atoms. You can imagine how high the stakes were in the second half of the 40s of the last century, when work began in the USA and the USSR, which resulted in a thermonuclear bomb.
How it all started
As early as the summer of 1942, at the beginning of the atomic bomb project in the United States (the Manhattan Project) and later in a similar Soviet program, long before a bomb based on the fission of uranium nuclei was built, the attention of some participants in these programs was drawn to the device, which can use a much more powerful nuclear fusion reaction. In the USA, a supporter of this approach, and even, one might say, its apologist, was the above-mentioned Edward Teller. In the USSR, this direction was developed by Andrei Sakharov, a future academician and dissident.
For Teller, his fascination with thermonuclear fusion during the years of creating the atomic bomb was rather a disservice. As a participant in the Manhattan Project, he persistently called for the redirection of funds to implement his own ideas, the goal of which was a hydrogen and thermonuclear bomb, which did not please the leadership and caused tension in relations. Since at that time the thermonuclear direction of research was not supported, after the creation of the atomic bomb Teller left the project and began teaching, as well as researching elementary particles.
However, the outbreak of the Cold War, and most of all the creation and successful testing of the Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, became a new chance for the ardent anti-communist Teller to realize his scientific ideas. He returns to the Los Alamos laboratory, where the atomic bomb was created, and, together with Stanislav Ulam and Cornelius Everett, begins calculations.
The principle of a thermonuclear bomb
In order for the nuclear fusion reaction to begin, the bomb charge must be instantly heated to a temperature of 50 million degrees. The thermonuclear bomb scheme proposed by Teller uses for this purpose the explosion of a small atomic bomb, which is located inside the hydrogen casing. It can be argued that there were three generations in the development of her project in the 40s of the last century:
- Teller's variation, known as the "classic super";
- more complex, but also more realistic designs of several concentric spheres;
- the final version of the Teller-Ulam design, which is the basis of all thermonuclear weapon systems operating today.
Thermonuclear bombs of the USSR, whose creation was pioneered by Andrei Sakharov, went through similar design stages. He, apparently, completely independently and independently of the Americans (which cannot be said about the Soviet atomic bomb, created by the joint efforts of scientists and intelligence officers working in the USA) went through all of the above design stages.
The first two generations had the property that they had a succession of interlocking "layers", each of which enhanced some aspect of the previous one, and in some cases established feedback. There was no clear division between the primary atomic bomb and the secondary thermonuclear one. In contrast, the Teller-Ulam thermonuclear bomb diagram sharply distinguishes between a primary explosion, a secondary explosion, and, if necessary, an additional one.
The device of a thermonuclear bomb according to the Teller-Ulam principle
Many of its details still remain classified, but it is reasonably certain that all thermonuclear weapons currently available are based on the device created by Edward Telleros and Stanislaw Ulam, in which an atomic bomb (i.e. the primary charge) is used to generate radiation, compresses and heats fusion fuel. Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union apparently independently came up with a similar concept, which he called the "third idea."
The structure of a thermonuclear bomb in this version is shown schematically in the figure below.
It was cylindrical in shape, with a roughly spherical primary atomic bomb at one end. The secondary thermonuclear charge in the first, not yet industrial samples, was made of liquid deuterium, a little later it became solid from chemical compound called lithium deuteride.
The fact is that industry has long used lithium hydride LiH for balloon-free hydrogen transportation. The developers of the bomb (this idea was first used in the USSR) simply proposed taking its isotope deuterium instead of ordinary hydrogen and combining it with lithium, since it is much easier to make a bomb with a solid thermonuclear charge.
The shape of the secondary charge was a cylinder placed in a container with a lead (or uranium) shell. Between the charges there is a neutron protection shield. The space between the walls of the container with thermonuclear fuel and the bomb body is filled with special plastic, usually polystyrene foam. The bomb body itself is made of steel or aluminum.
These shapes have changed in recent designs such as the one shown below.
In it, the primary charge is flattened, like a watermelon or an American football ball, and the secondary charge is spherical. Such shapes fit much more efficiently into the internal volume of conical missile warheads.
Thermonuclear explosion sequence
When a primary atomic bomb detonates, in the first moments of this process a powerful X-ray radiation (neutron flux) is generated, which is partially blocked by the neutron shield, and is reflected from the inner lining of the housing surrounding the secondary charge, so that the X-rays fall symmetrically across its entire length
During the initial stages of a thermonuclear reaction, neutrons from an atomic explosion are absorbed by a plastic filler to prevent the fuel from heating up too quickly.
X-rays initially cause the appearance of a dense plastic foam that fills the space between the housing and the secondary charge, which quickly turns into a plasma state that heats and compresses the secondary charge.
In addition, the X-rays evaporate the surface of the container surrounding the secondary charge. The substance of the container, evaporating symmetrically relative to this charge, acquires a certain impulse directed from its axis, and the layers of the secondary charge, according to the law of conservation of momentum, receive an impulse directed to the axis of the device. The principle here is the same as in a rocket, only if you imagine that the rocket fuel scatters symmetrically from its axis, and the body is compressed inward.
As a result of such compression of thermonuclear fuel, its volume decreases thousands of times, and the temperature reaches the level at which the nuclear fusion reaction begins. A thermonuclear bomb explodes. The reaction is accompanied by the formation of tritium nuclei, which merge with deuterium nuclei initially present in the secondary charge.
The first secondary charges were built around a rod core of plutonium, informally called a "candle", which entered into a nuclear fission reaction, i.e., another, additional atomic explosion was carried out in order to further raise the temperature to ensure the start of the nuclear fusion reaction. It is now believed that more efficient compression systems have eliminated the "candle", allowing further miniaturization of bomb design.
Operation Ivy
This was the name given to the tests of American thermonuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands in 1952, during which the first thermonuclear bomb was detonated. It was called Ivy Mike and was built by standard scheme Teller-Ulama. Its secondary thermonuclear charge was placed in a cylindrical container, which was a thermally insulated Dewar flask with thermonuclear fuel in the form of liquid deuterium, along the axis of which a “candle” of 239-plutonium ran. The dewar, in turn, was covered with a layer of 238-uranium weighing more than 5 metric tons, which evaporated during the explosion, providing symmetrical compression of the thermonuclear fuel. The container containing the primary and secondary charges was housed in a steel casing 80 inches wide by 244 inches long with walls 10 to 12 inches thick, the largest example of a forged product up to that time. The inner surface of the case was lined with sheets of lead and polyethylene to reflect radiation after the explosion of the primary charge and create plasma that heats the secondary charge. The entire device weighed 82 tons. A view of the device shortly before the explosion is shown in the photo below.
The first test of a thermonuclear bomb took place on October 31, 1952. The power of the explosion was 10.4 megatons. Attol Eniwetok, where it was produced, was completely destroyed. The moment of the explosion is shown in the photo below.
The USSR gives a symmetrical answer
The US thermonuclear championship did not last long. On August 12, 1953, the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb RDS-6, developed under the leadership of Andrei Sakharov and Yuli Khariton, was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. From the description above, it becomes clear that the Americans at Enewetok did not explode the bomb itself, as a type of ready-to-use ammunition, but rather a laboratory device, cumbersome and very imperfect. Soviet scientists, despite the small power of only 400 kg, tested a completely finished ammunition with thermonuclear fuel in the form of solid lithium deuteride, and not liquid deuterium, like the Americans. By the way, it should be noted that only the 6 Li isotope is used in lithium deuteride (this is due to the peculiarities of thermonuclear reactions), and in nature it is mixed with the 7 Li isotope. Therefore, special production facilities were built to separate lithium isotopes and select only 6 Li.
Reaching Power Limit
What followed was a decade of continuous arms race, during which the power of thermonuclear munitions continually increased. Finally, on October 30, 1961, in the USSR over the Novaya Zemlya test site in the air at an altitude of about 4 km, the most powerful thermonuclear bomb that had ever been built and tested, known in the West as the “Tsar Bomba,” was exploded.
This three-stage munition was actually developed as a 101.5-megaton bomb, but the desire to reduce radioactive contamination of the area forced the developers to abandon the third stage with a yield of 50 megatons and reduce the design yield of the device to 51.5 megatons. At the same time, the power of the explosion of the primary atomic charge was 1.5 megatons, and the second thermonuclear stage was supposed to give another 50. The actual power of the explosion was up to 58 megatons. The appearance of the bomb is shown in the photo below.
Its consequences were impressive. Despite the very significant height of the explosion of 4000 m, the incredibly bright fireball with its lower edge almost reached the Earth, and with its upper edge it rose to a height of more than 4.5 km. The pressure below the burst point was six times higher than the peak pressure of the Hiroshima explosion. The flash of light was so bright that it was visible at a distance of 1000 kilometers, despite the cloudy weather. One of the test participants saw a bright flash through dark glasses and felt the effects of the thermal pulse even at a distance of 270 km. A photo of the moment of the explosion is shown below.
It was shown that the power of a thermonuclear charge really has no limitations. After all, it was enough to complete the third stage, and the calculated power would be achieved. But it is possible to increase the number of stages further, since the weight of the Tsar Bomba was no more than 27 tons. The appearance of this device is shown in the photo below.
After these tests, it became clear to many politicians and military men both in the USSR and in the USA that the limit of the nuclear arms race had come and it needed to be stopped.
Modern Russia inherited the nuclear arsenal of the USSR. Today, Russia's thermonuclear bombs continue to serve as a deterrent to those seeking global hegemony. Let's hope they only play their role as a deterrent and are never detonated.
The sun as a fusion reactor
It is well known that the temperature of the Sun, or more precisely its core, reaching 15,000,000 °K, is maintained due to the continuous occurrence of thermonuclear reactions. However, everything that we could glean from the previous text speaks of the explosive nature of such processes. Then why doesn't the Sun explode like a thermonuclear bomb?
The fact is that with a huge share of hydrogen in the solar mass, which reaches 71%, the share of its isotope deuterium, the nuclei of which can only participate in the thermonuclear fusion reaction, is negligible. The fact is that deuterium nuclei themselves are formed as a result of the merger of two hydrogen nuclei, and not just a merger, but with the decay of one of the protons into a neutron, positron and neutrino (so-called beta decay), which is a rare event. In this case, the resulting deuterium nuclei are distributed fairly evenly throughout the volume of the solar core. Therefore, with her huge sizes and mass, individual and rare centers of thermonuclear reactions of relatively low power are, as it were, smeared throughout its entire core of the Sun. The heat released during these reactions is clearly not enough to instantly burn out all the deuterium in the Sun, but it is enough to heat it to a temperature that ensures life on Earth.
On August 12, 1953, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.
And on January 16, 1963, in the midst of cold war, Nikita Khrushchev told the world that Soviet Union has in its arsenal new weapons of mass destruction. A year and a half earlier, the most powerful hydrogen bomb explosion in the world was carried out in the USSR - a charge with a capacity of over 50 megatons was detonated on Novaya Zemlya. In many ways, it was this statement by the Soviet leader that made the world realize the threat of further escalation of the nuclear arms race: already on August 5, 1963, an agreement was signed in Moscow banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water.
History of creation
The theoretical possibility of obtaining energy by thermonuclear fusion was known even before World War II, but it was the war and the subsequent arms race that raised the question of creating technical device to practically create this reaction. It is known that in Germany in 1944, work was carried out to initiate thermonuclear fusion by compressing nuclear fuel using charges of conventional explosives - but they were not successful, since it was not possible to obtain the required temperatures and pressures. The USA and the USSR have been developing thermonuclear weapons since the 40s, almost simultaneously testing the first thermonuclear devices in the early 50s. In 1952, on the Eniwetak Atoll, the United States exploded a charge with a yield of 10.4 megatons (which is 450 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki), and in 1953, the USSR tested a device with a yield of 400 kilotons.
The designs of the first thermonuclear devices were poorly suited for actual combat use. For example, the device tested by the United States in 1952 was a ground-based structure the height of a 2-story building and weighing over 80 tons. Liquid thermonuclear fuel was stored in it using a huge refrigeration unit. Therefore, in the future, serial production of thermonuclear weapons was carried out using solid fuel - lithium-6 deuteride. In 1954, the United States tested a device based on it at Bikini Atoll, and in 1955, a new Soviet thermonuclear bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. In 1957, tests of a hydrogen bomb were carried out in Great Britain. In October 1961, a thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 58 megatons was detonated in the USSR on Novaya Zemlya - the most powerful bomb ever tested by mankind, which went down in history under the name “Tsar Bomba”.
Further development was aimed at reducing the size of the design of hydrogen bombs to ensure their delivery to the target by ballistic missiles. Already in the 60s, the mass of devices was reduced to several hundred kilograms, and by the 70s, ballistic missiles could carry over 10 warheads simultaneously - these are missiles with multiple warheads, each part can hit its own target. Today, the USA, Russia and Great Britain have thermonuclear arsenals; tests of thermonuclear charges were also carried out in China (in 1967) and in France (in 1968).
The principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb
The action of a hydrogen bomb is based on the use of energy released during the thermonuclear fusion reaction of light nuclei. It is this reaction that takes place in the depths of stars, where, under the influence of ultra-high temperatures and enormous pressure, hydrogen nuclei collide and merge into more heavy nuclei helium During the reaction, part of the mass of hydrogen nuclei is converted into a large amount of energy - thanks to this, stars constantly release huge amounts of energy. Scientists copied this reaction using hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, giving it the name “hydrogen bomb.” Initially, liquid isotopes of hydrogen were used to produce charges, and later lithium-6 deuteride, a solid compound of deuterium and an isotope of lithium, was used.
Lithium-6 deuteride is the main component of the hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear fuel. It already stores deuterium, and the lithium isotope serves as the raw material for the formation of tritium. To start a thermonuclear fusion reaction, it is necessary to create high temperature and pressure, and also to isolate tritium from lithium-6. These conditions are provided as follows.
The shell of the container for thermonuclear fuel is made of uranium-238 and plastic, and a conventional nuclear charge with a power of several kilotons is placed next to the container - it is called a trigger, or initiator charge of a hydrogen bomb. During the explosion of a plutonium initiator charge under the influence of a powerful x-ray radiation the shell of the container turns into plasma, compressing thousands of times, which creates the necessary high pressure and enormous temperature. At the same time, neutrons emitted by plutonium interact with lithium-6, forming tritium. Deuterium and tritium nuclei interact under the influence of ultra-high temperature and pressure, which leads to a thermonuclear explosion.
If you make several layers of uranium-238 and lithium-6 deuteride, then each of them will add its own power to the bomb explosion - that is, such a “puff” allows you to increase the power of the explosion almost unlimitedly. Thanks to this, a hydrogen bomb can be made of almost any power, and it will be much cheaper than a conventional nuclear bomb of the same power.
