<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A Los Alamos collaboration has replicated an important but largely forgotten physics experiment: the first deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion observation. As described in the article <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1103\/PhysRevC.111.064618\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i><i>Physical Review<\/i> C<\/i>, the reworking of the previously unheralded experiment confirmed the role of University of Michigan physicist Arthur Ruhlig, whose 1938 experiment and observation of deuterium-tritium fusion likely planted the seed for a physics process that informs national security work and nuclear energy research to this day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we\u2019ve uncovered, Ruhlig\u2019s contribution was to hypothesize that DT fusion happens with very high probability when deuterium and tritium are brought sufficiently close together,\u201d said Mark Chadwick, associate Laboratory director for Science, Computation and Theory at Los Alamos. \u201cReplicating his experiment helped us interpret his work and better understand his role, and what proved to be his essentially correct conclusions. The course of nuclear fuel physics has borne out the profound consequences of Arthur Ruhlig\u2019s clever insight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The DT fusion reaction is central to enabling fusion technologies, whether as part of the nation\u2019s nuclear deterrence capabilities or in ongoing efforts to develop fusion for civilian energy. For instance, the deuterium-tritium reaction is at the center of efforts at the National Ignition Facility to harness fusion. Los Alamos physicists developed a theory about where the idea came from\u2014Ruhlig\u2014and then built an experiment that would confirm the import and accuracy of Ruhlig\u2019s suggestion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Los Alamos collaboration has replicated an important but largely forgotten physics experiment: the first deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion observation. As described in the article published in Physical Review C, the reworking of the previously unheralded experiment confirmed the role of University of Michigan physicist Arthur Ruhlig, whose 1938 experiment and observation of deuterium-tritium fusion likely [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,219,1492],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuclear-energy","category-physics","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}