Atmospheric transport of neutrons and gamma rays from near-horizon nuclear detonations

摘要

This report continues a study of the transport of neutrons and rays from nuclear detonations at high altitudes to a set of detectors, with an emphasis on the limiting case of sources even beyond the horizon. To improve the calculational efficiency, the standard arrangement of a single source with multiple detectors is transformed to an equivalent one with a single detector and sources at multiple locations. Particular attention is paid to the critical problem of transport at near-horizon angles in an atmosphere whose density decreases exponentially with altitude. As a check, calculations for this region are made using both analytical and Monte Carlo approaches.