Belgian Nuclear Research Institute, Mol, 2400, Belgium.
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Brussels, 1180, Belgium.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 5;8(1):10155. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-28403-z.
The International Monitoring System is being set up aiming to detect violations of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Suspicious radioxenon detections were made by the International Monitoring System after the third announced nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). In this paper, inverse atmospheric transport and dispersion modelling was applied to these detections, to determine the source location, the release term and its associated uncertainties. The DPRK nuclear test site was found to be a likely source location, though a second likely source region in East Asia was found by the inverse modelling, partly due to the radioxenon background from civilian sources. Therefore, techniques to indirectly assess the influence of the radioxenon background are suggested. In case of suspicious radioxenon detections after a man-made explosion, atmospheric transport and dispersion modelling is a powerful tool for assessing whether the explosion could have been nuclear or not.
国际监测系统正在建立，旨在探测违反《全面禁止核试验条约》的行为。在朝鲜民主主义人民共和国（朝鲜）进行第三次宣布的核试验后，国际监测系统探测到可疑的放射性氙。在本文中，应用反大气传输和扩散建模对这些探测进行了分析，以确定源位置、释放时间及其相关不确定性。朝鲜核试验场被认为是一个可能的源位置，但反演建模还发现了东亚的第二个可能的源区，部分原因是民用源的放射性氙背景。因此，建议采用间接评估放射性氙背景影响的技术。在人为爆炸后出现可疑的放射性氙探测时，大气传输和扩散建模是评估爆炸是否为核爆炸的有力工具。
