Treaty Verification using Epithermal Resonance Phenomena

Nuclear disarmament treaties are not sufficient in and of themselves to neutralize the existential threat of the nuclear weapons. Technologies are necessary for verifying the authenticity of the nuclear warheads undergoing dismantlement before counting them towards a treaty partner’s obligation. This work presents a novel concept that leverages isotope-specific nuclear resonance phenomena to authenticate a warhead's fissile components by comparing them to a previously authenticated template. The neutron interaction with most actinide nuclei in the 1-10 eV range have very clear, isotope-specific resonances. In a transmission measurement these resonances produce isotope-specific features in the spectral data, thus creating an isotopic \"fingerprint\" of an object. All information in this measurement is encrypted in the physical domain in a manner that amounts to a physical zero-knowledge proof system. Using Monte Carlo simulations, the system is shown to reveal no isotopic or geometric information about the weapon, while readily detecting hoaxing attempts. This nuclear detection technique can dramatically increase the reach and trustworthiness of future nuclear disarmament treaties. The concept, the simulation results, as well as some early proof-of-concept experimental results will be presented.