Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California developed an algorithm to simulate nuclear reaction rates, which are tough to make in a lab, to collect data to maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile, according to a press release.
The hybrid computing scheme “successfully” simulated the scattering of two neutrons, which can be used to compute nuclear reaction rates, according to a press releaseby the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
Researchers hope that developing this method could support NNSA in collecting data, alongside subcritical experiments, to ensure the reliability of the U.S.’s warheads without nuclear weapons testing. Since the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1992, NNSA has performed 33 subcritical experiments in Nevada.
“Predictive simulation of dynamical nuclear processes (such as scattering, reaction and fission probabilities) are critical to arrive at accurate nuclear data libraries in support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program,” an LLNL spokesperson said in an email to the Exchange Monitor. “At this stage, LLNL has only carried out very foundational work in quantum simulations of scattering towards enabling some potential NNSA applications in the future.”
NNSA funded the project, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) worked with scientists from University of Washington, University of Trento, and the Advanced Quantum Testbed, a superconducting platform that conducts full-stack quantum computing.
