Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2012
Volume 57, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, March 31–April 3 2012; Atlanta, Georgia
Session Q5: Invited Session: New Developments in Radiation Detection Technologies |
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Sponsoring Units: FPS Chair: Douglas Wright, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Room: International Ballroom South |
Monday, April 2, 2012 10:45AM - 11:21AM |
Q5.00001: Latest developments in radiation detection technology and nuclear security Invited Speaker: Warren Stern |
Monday, April 2, 2012 11:21AM - 11:57AM |
Q5.00002: Nuclear Threat Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Invited Speaker: Michael Kuliasha The National Security Strategy states that the greatest threat to the American people is ``the pursuit of nuclear weapons by violent extremists and their proliferation to additional states.'' The Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA) addresses a key portion of that threat by focusing on detecting nuclear and radiological materials that are out of regulatory control within permissive operating environments. However, the force protection requirements of the Department of Defense (DoD) range across a wider mission space from permissive environments, where nuclear and radiological materials can be monitored while under regulatory control, to hostile environments where nuclear and radiological materials exist in defiance of international regulations and agreements. This wider range of operating environments and the inherent physics limitations on the range of radiation detection pose great challenges to radiation detection-focused approaches to nuclear threat detection. Consequently, DoD is in the process of defining an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance approach to countering nuclear threats that considers the observable signatures of all elements that comprise a potential threat; information, funds, people, material, equipment, and infrastructure. This strategy represents a shift from radiation detection as the primary sensing modality to radiation detection as one of many sensing modalities, including the human dimension, with a heavy emphasis on data fusion. This presentation will describe the attributes of a layered sensing approach to nuclear threat detection, illustrate the approach with examples, define potential building blocks, and discuss technical challenges. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 2, 2012 11:57AM - 12:33PM |
Q5.00003: Don't Mess with the NEST Invited Speaker: Michael Larson This presentation will describe the history of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) and its evolution over the years. NEST was formed due to a number of nuclear extortion threats received in the early 1970s. From the beginning NEST developed an extensive exercise program to test and expand capabilities. The Nuclear Assessment Program (NAP) was developed, in part, to determine if NEST deployments were required. A major revamp of the NEST program occurred in 1994. Many other organizations work in conjunction with NEST in particular the FBI and DOD. Considerable research and development has been performed in the areas of Access, Search, Diagnostics, Device Assessment, and Disablement. Extensive searches of material appearing in the unclassified literature have been and are being performed to see what is being said about nuclear materials and devices. A comprehensive study of Improvised Nuclear Devices (IND) is ongoing to determine what a terrorist can and cannot do. NEST now consists of four phases with the latest additions of Phase III, Disposition and Phase IV, Nuclear Forensics. LLNL-ABS-521775 [Preview Abstract] |
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