Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS April Meeting
Volume 54, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, May 2–5, 2009; Denver, Colorado
Session P1: Plenary Session II |
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Sponsoring Units: APS Chair: Cherry Murray, APS President and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Room: Plaza Ballroom ABC |
Monday, May 4, 2009 8:30AM - 9:06AM |
P1.00001: Next generation x-ray laser sources for the study of matter Invited Speaker: Building on the coherence of radiation from bunched relativistic electrons, new x-ray free electron lasers (FELs) are poised to revolutionize the study of matter by enabling time-resolved experiments with femtosecond and possibly attosecond resolution and Angstrom scale spatial resolution. Spectacular results have already been obtained at the FLASH at DESY and new results are expected soon at the LCLS FEL at SLAC. Several other laboratories are also pursuing plans to construct novel FEL-based x-ray sources to take advantage of their extremely high peak and high average flux of photons. There are several types of FELs; all of them produce spatially coherent light and the more complex ones also produce temporally coherent light. Plans for new facilities often include an array of FELs with individual features targeting specific needs of experimentalists. The state of the art electron injector and linear accelerator will provide high brightness electron beams to such FEL array. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, May 4, 2009 9:06AM - 9:42AM |
P1.00002: Nuclear Energy Invited Speaker: |
Monday, May 4, 2009 9:42AM - 10:18AM |
P1.00003: A Physicist Looks at the Terrorist Threat Invited Speaker: Many people fear a terrorist nuclear device, smuggled into the United States, as the one weapon that could surpass the destruction and impact of 9-11. I'll review the design of nuclear weapons, with emphasis on the kinds that can be developed by rogue nations, terrorist groups, and high-school students. Saddam, prior to the first gulf war, was developing a uranium bomb, similar to the one that destroyed Hiroshima. His calutrons (named after my university) were destroyed by the United Nations. The North Korean nuclear weapon was, like the U.S. bomb used on Nagasaki, based on plutonium. Its test released the energy equivalent of about 400 tons of TNT. Although some people have speculated that they were attempting to build a small bomb, it is far more likely that this weapon was a fizzle, with less than 1 percent of the plutonium exploded. In contrast, the energy released from burning jet fuel at the 9-11 World Trade Center attack was the equivalent of 900 tons of TNT for each plane -- over twice that of the North Korean Nuke. The damage came from the fact that gasoline delivers 10 kilocalories per gram, about 15 times the energy of an equal weight of TNT. It is this huge energy per gram that also accounts for our addiction to gasoline; per gram, high performance lithium-ion computer batteries carry only 1 percent as much energy. A dirty bomb (radiological weapon) is also unattractive to terrorists because of the threhold effect: doses less than 100 rem produce no radiation illness and will leave no dead bodies at the scene. That may be why al Qaeda instructed Jose Padilla to abandon his plans for a dirty bomb attack in Chicago, and to try a fossil fuel attack (natural gas) instead. I will argue that the biggest terrorist threat is the conventional low-tech one, such as an airplane attack on a crowded stadium using the explosive fuel that they can legally buy at the corner station. [Preview Abstract] |
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