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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Ljubomir Nikolic, Milos M. Skoric, Seiji Ishiguro, Tetsuya Sato
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 3 | May 2003 | Pages 359-365
Technical Paper | Targets and Target Protection During Injection | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A279
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Propagation of a laser light through regions of an underdense plasma is an active research topic in laser fusion. In particular, a large effort has been invested in studies of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), which can reflect laser energy and produce energetic particles to preheat a fusion energy target. Experiments, theory, and simulations agree on a complex interplay between various laser-plasma instabilities. By particle-in-cell simulations of an underdense electron plasma, apart from the standard SRS, a strong backscattering was found near the electron plasma frequency at densities beyond the quarter critical. This novel instability, recognized in recent experiments as stimulated laser scattering on a trapped electron-acoustic mode (SEAS), is absent from a classical theory of laser-parametric instabilities. A parametric excitation of SEAS instability is explained by a three-wave resonant decay of the incident laser light into a standing backscattered wave and a slow trapped electron-acoustic wave ([omega] < [omega]p). Large SEAS pulsations, eventually suppressed by relativistic heating of electrons, are observed in these simulations. This phenomenon seems relevant to future hohlraum target and fast ignition experiments.