Destruction of nuclear bombs using ultra-high energy neutrino beam (2003) [pdf]

> There is a compelling physics case for constructing a 10 TeV or more pCM collider. Such a collider would search for direct evidence and quantum imprints of new particles and forces at unprecedented energies. There are several approaches: a 10 TeV muon collider, a 100 TeV proton-proton collider such as FCC-hh at CERN, or possibly a 10 TeV high-energy e+e– or γ-γ collider based on the wakefield acceleration technology. Any of them would enable a comprehensive physics portfolio that includes ultimate measurements in the Higgs sector, a broad search program providing access to new hidden sectors by producing a substantially higher mediator mass or probing even smaller coupling, and opportunities to produce new particles directly. All options for a 10 TeV pCM collider are new technologies under development and R&D is required before we can embark on building a new collider.

[1] https://www.usparticlephysics.org/2023-p5-report/the-recomme...

What a pity. Imagine how peaceful the world would be today if we could suddenly and irrevocably destroy every single nuclear weapon, across the globe, in one fell swoop.

Well, we better leave them entombed in their casings for a more advanced society to develop the technology to do this .. if we can do it for scrolls, we can do it for bombs.

"The whole paper feels like a con attempt by the authors to talk governments into building smaller muon colliders as an intermediate step. Of course these smaller colliders could also be used to study concepts of a higher energy collider that could produce anti-nuke rays. But for the most part, these smaller colliders would be incredible physics discovery machines."

So why a con attempt, when it is just logical to get there step by step by building smaller colliders, that also enable awesome new research?

If they would not have stated clearly, that the concept is too futuristic currently, then it would be a con attempt. But they did.

* 3% explosive yield

* Likely a dirty explosion, spreading radioactive contaminants.

* The area where the beam is targeted (couple meter radius) gets a 1 Sv/sec dose, for about 100 seconds. "compared with the U.S. Federal off-site limit of 1 mSV/year"

I'm also curious if anything inside the earth gets dosed by the beam? I don't know enough about neutrinos to speculate.

Also, wouldn't one assume that these bombs have neutron shields on them, to prevent accidental triggering by the stray neutron source? Hence, they'd really need the beam to target _inside_ the bomb, not just near it.

Finally, skimming the paper, I didn't see mention of the energy levels of the neutrons they expect to hit the radioactive materials. Most radioactive isotopes don't have a large cross section for fast neutrons. Is it expected for this hadron shower to generate thermal neutrons? Otherwise, the beam would need to be several orders of magnitude stronger...

(Not that the idea isn't cool as fuck)

EDIT: Thinking about it a bit. If I understand the paper correctly, the beam has to be at 1000TeV to penetrate the Earth and hit the target, so you can't decrease the beam's strength and mitigate the above issues. But if the beam could be PWM'd, then you can effectively do that. And if you can lower the effective energy of the beam, then it might be possible to spray a slow and steady stream of neutrons inside the bomb, slowly decaying all the radioactive isotopes. It would take a lot longer, on the order of months, and would probably be detectable, but at least there wouldn't be that pesky issue of turning it into a small dirty bomb...

From my almost illiterate level: It seems like a supernova will produce a bunch of neutrinos in one go. And they are affected by gravity. So a black hole near with a supernova could act as a gravity lens and "focus" the neutrinos.

Does this mean that any nuclear bomb has a (infinitesimal) chance of exploding with 3% of their actual yield, apparently on their own?

If such a shield becomes operational, then there's no reason not to first strike anyone without such a shield, as there'd be no repercussions.

So, by that same logic, the opponent knows this, and thus, it's in their interest to first strike, before the shield becomes operational. So the MAD doctrine no longer applies, and we'd have destroyed the world.

Therefore, even starting to make such a technology will very quickly spiral the world into a nuclear appocalypse.

Absolutely. There are many technologies where if your enemy manages to create it you are already in an un-winnable situation. For example nuclear warheads pre-positioned in orbit with solid reentry boosters. If you have that you can nuke anyone with seconds of warning. The correct counter to this strategy from your enemy is to kill you before you can implement this plan.

Because of that you will want to sneak it by your enemy. But with this… even that is hard. Surely they will see when you light up this much energy generation no matter how sneaky you built it up? Unless you provide some plausible explanation, like hide it in an active carbon capture scheme or something.

Or you might build it in such a way as to avoid attribution. For example make a very stealthy von-neumann probe launched at the asteroid belt designed to reconfigure matter there for solar power harvesting and build this particle accelerator in-situ. You can disguise the initual launch as a failed interplanetary mission perhaps. And when it lights up pretend you didn’t know who did it?

Meanwhile US nuclear modernzation is 500B until 230, 1.5T until 2050.

Seems like a bargin.

Not sure how to get a dollar figure if the tech isn't remotely possible.

The invisible beam is probably a non starter for movies. If somebody will put this idea on screen they'll find a way to make neutrinos visible.

The problem with nukes is they're an absorbing state. Once the nuclear war happens there's no retries. Nukes present an x% chance of near-extinction over the next T years. That x% goes up as T goes up, asymptoting to 100% as T becomes sufficiently long, assuming no ground-breaking paradigm shift in global cooperation such as a single world government, which won't happen in our lifetime due to how hardwired nationalism and nativism is. Each generation, we're going to keep rolling the i.i.d. nuclear dice and x% will go from 2% to 10% to higher as T goes up, then eventually it'll happen. Recall that it almost happened in the Cold War, only one random person who stopped it is the reason you're alive.

The main argument I'd accept for nukes is that we need to reduce hot war in the short-term to accelerate economic and scientific progress, which will then reduce other civilization-scale problems (like climate change, pandemics, cancer treatments, diversifying life to other plants) to a point where the perpetuation of the nuke existential risk becomes justified.

Conversly, it may make some bomb-holders scrable to use their weapons as-intended - before they're rendered useless to them.

Most nukes are underground, so most of the fallout would be contained. And the result would be a world not fearing anymore for accidental or intentionally nuclear anhilation.

So most would consider that supervillain a super hero.

So I guess that if you targeted a reactor, you could induce a meltdown, given enough time-on-target.

The paper notes that this is too much, of course.

With a sprinkle of sarcasm.