Use of glazes on porcelain from near ground zero to measure Hiroshima neutron fluence.

ABSTRACT

Several porcelain samples from almost directly beneath the atomic explosion at Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, have been scanned for induced fission tracks, produced mostly by the thermal neutrons from the bomb due to interactions with trace uranium in their glass coatings. The ability to use porcelain opens a new and abundant material for retrospective dosimetry. Four different samples had thermal neutron fluences in 1945 of 1.0, 3.8, 4.1, and 8.9 x 10(12) cm(-2). The different values are not caused by track fading, but are likely to result from differing shielding at different nearby positions. Assuming that the three highest fluences, which have overlapping uncertainties, are at locations of minimum shielding, the statistically weighted thermal fluence in the air at ground level and ground zero was 4.8 x 10(12) cm(-2) with a statistical uncertainty of 15%. This value lies between the calculated value of 6.5 x 10(12) given in DS86 and the 3.7 x 10(12) inferred from induced radionuclides by Hoshi et al. (1998).