{"id":186756,"date":"2021-06-14T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=186756"},"modified":"2021-06-11T03:38:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T02:38:56","slug":"what-are-atomic-bomb-quasicrystals-and-why-do-they-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/06\/what-are-atomic-bomb-quasicrystals-and-why-do-they-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are Atomic Bomb Quasicrystals, and Why Do They Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Behold the Beautiful Atomic Quasicrystal<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Red trinitite: L. Bindi and P.J. Steinhardt.
Used with permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

9 Jun 2021 – <\/em>Theoretical physicist Edward Teller applied sunscreen<\/a> as he stood in a remote section of the New Mexico desert before dawn on the morning of July 16, 1945. He sought to protect his skin from light rays emitted by the scheduled test of Gadget\u2014a plutonium-powered nuclear bomb. Richard Feynman, another theoretical physicist, turned his radio dial to a classical music<\/a> station. As the countdown began, the assembled crowd grew quiet. Gadget\u2019s detonation drowned out the arias and exploded into an orange and yellow fireball that temporarily blinded onlookers. The blast, which packed the power of 21,000 tons of TNT, vaporized the steel tower on which the bomb had stood. Its mushroom cloud grew eight miles high. Desert sand melted. Radiation filled the air.<\/p>\n

Also, amidst the destruction, something lovely was born. Mathematically perfect quasicrystals\u2014a \u201cforbidden\u201d kind of matter whose existence had long been contested\u2014rained down in the debris, though that discovery would not be made for another 75 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe searched through grain by grain repeatedly. It takes nutty determination,\u201d said Paul Steinhardt, lead author on a recent paper<\/a> announcing the discovery. This quasicrystal evidence from the first atomic bomb test\u2014codenamed Trinity\u2014holds promise as an analytical tool that could help determine (for one example) who was responsible for a terrorist nuclear attack. But this unusual matter formed at the birth of the atomic age also raises important questions about the nature of all matter in the universe.<\/p>\n

What are quasicrystals, and why were they \u201cforbidden?\u201d <\/strong>Mathematicians have long known that shapes observe strict rules when they are arranged in ordered, periodic (repetitive) patterns. For example, wallpaper designs are often based on symmetric patterns that repeat in predictable ways.<\/p>\n

\"These <\/picture>
These wallpaper patterns are examples of symmetric designs that repeat in predictable ways. Karen Arnold. Public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The crystallographic classification of minerals\u2014such as sugar, salt, or diamonds\u2014was based on the mathematical theory of ordered, repeated patterns. That is, arrangements of atoms were thought to be either disordered or ordered, and the only possibility in the latter case involved repetitive, three-dimensional compositions.<\/p>\n

Of course, mathematicians knew that that ordered, non-repetitive patterns existed\u2014at least in theory. British mathematician Sir Roger Penrose<\/a>, for example, created many such designs. Scientists, however, were slow to consider the possibility that natural materials whose atomic structures mimic these properties\u2014quasicrystals\u2014might exist.<\/p>\n

\"This
This pattern, due to British mathematician Sir Roger Penrose, is ordered, even though it does not repeat in predictable ways. Kite and dart titling by Abcxwz. Public domain.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAll of us who worked on quasicrystals were mocked,\u201d recalls Steinhardt. \u201cWe were fighting against the laws of crystallography that appear in every textbook and saying that they had missed something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engineer and materials scientist Daniel Shechtman beat Steinhardt to finding the first quasicrystal, which he discovered in an aluminum and manganese alloy in a laboratory setting. Upon announcing his discovery, Nobel Prize recipient in chemistry Linus Pauling said<\/a>, \u201cThere are no quasicrystals, just quasi-scientists.\u201d But Pauling was wrong; atomic building blocks could break crystallographic laws. Shechtman later won<\/a> the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel
Daniel Schectman was the first to find quasicrystals, which he discovered in a laboratory setting. Photo accessed via Wikimedia Commons CC BY SA-3.0.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for Steinhardt, he remained in active pursuit\u2014a pursuit many colleagues deemed foolish\u2014for quasicrystals outside of the highly controlled conditions of lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the field of materials science or condensed matter physics, to have a nice mathematical idea but no physical manifestation makes you a loser. I decided, I\u2019d better spend some time trying to look for such materials,\u201d Steinhardt said.<\/p>\n

Why does atomic bomb debris harbor quasicrystals? <\/strong>Steinhardt and his colleague Luca Bindi embarked on a quest that took their team to remote Eastern Russia to examine some grains measuring only a few microns long in objects that looked like rocks. The \u201crocks\u201d turned out to be meteorites formed in space at the beginning of the solar system from a high-impact collision. Squished in the mess of meteorite materials, they found the first quasicrystals in nature<\/a>, which they named icosahedrite.<\/p>\n

But icosahedrite\u2019s quasicrystals were not any old quasicrystals. Steinhardt and Bindi had found natural quasicrystals that were of a much higher perfection than Schectman had found in the lab.<\/p>\n

\"Luca <\/picture>
Luca Bindi and Paul Steinhardt were the first to discover quasicrystals in nature. Credit: William Steinhardt. Used with permission<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt means our intuition about what\u2019s complex and difficult to form when it comes to matter is off. We\u2019re overestimating how difficult it is,\u201d Steinhardt said. His working hypothesis was that quasicrystals could form under the extreme heat and pressure of a high-impact, uncontrolled collision. He tried to think of a blast with these qualities, especially one with an unmistakable timestamp.<\/p>\n

That was when he thought of Gadget\u2019s glass-like debris\u2014known as trinitite, named for Trinity\u2014formed when desert sand, steel from the tower, and copper transmission wires melted under the blast\u2019s shock conditions. Trinitite comes in two colors: red and green. Red trinitite, which is much rarer than green trinitite, includes metal from Gadget\u2019s tower and transmission lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our quasicrystals had metal in them. The red stuff seemed to be the one to go for,\u201d Steinhardt said.<\/p>\n

\"Gadget, <\/picture>
Gadget, the plutonium-powered nuclear bomb used in the Trinity test, July 16, 1945. Photo accessed via Flickr under CC BY 2.0 license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sure enough, in a 10-micron grain from a piece of red trinitite that measured only a few millimeters, Steinhardt and Bindi\u2019s team found quasicrystals. Also, the exquisite sample differed from those that had been formed in the lab, from the ones he had found in the meteorite, and others that had since been discovered in fulgurites\u2014tube-like formations in sand or rock caused by lightning. Each new quasicrystal discovery unveiled yet another unique, quasi-kaleidoscopic atomic structure once thought to be impossible in natural or anthropogenic matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of quasicrystals, we had only scratched the surface of symmetries that are possible, out of in infinitude of symmetries,\u201d Steinhardt said.<\/p>\n

\"Atoms <\/picture>
Atoms in red trinitite quasicrystals are organized in a similar way to the atoms in this AlCoFe quasicrystal. Credit: P.J. Steinhardt, H.-C. Jeong, K. Saitoh, M. Tanaka, E. Abe, A.P. Tsai. Photo used with permission.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How might quasicrystals assist with nuclear forensics? <\/strong>Imagine the following scenario: A nuclear bomb is detonated in a US population center such as New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles. A global array of seismic sensors and satellite instruments<\/a> that monitor nuclear test ban treaty adherence would detect the blast, confirm that it was nuclear, and indicate its magnitude. But none of these devices would answer the pressing question: Who\u2019s responsible for the blast?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are questions that require the analysis of bomb debris to answer,\u201d said Timothy Ashenfelter, senior program manager for nuclear forensics at the National Nuclear Security Administration.<\/p>\n

In the imagined scenario, the bomb builders likely built the device with materials<\/a> that were available to them locally and with fuel<\/a> obtained through the black market, theft, or a donation from a government that sponsors terrorists. Yet the chemical and physical properties of the bomb\u2019s original components may have changed during the blast and its chemical condensation into a fireball. To analyze the debris for clues about its origins, investigators often rely on historic data from more than 1,000<\/a> past nuclear tests. Such forensic investigations date back to 1945 when Manhattan Project scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory analyzed Trinity test debris.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"Nuclear <\/picture>
Nuclear forensics workshop at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richmond, Washington in 2013, sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration\u2019s Office for Non-proliferation and International Security, in partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Accessed via Fickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt takes a nuclear weapons lab to find a nuclear weapons lab,\u201d Los Alamos Director Charles McMillan once said<\/a>. The International Atomic Energy Agency promotes the development of national nuclear forensics libraries<\/a> to assist in identifying nuclear and other radioactive materials out of regulatory control. Investigators concerned with law enforcement, nuclear science, or national security vulnerabilities typically rely on a variety of forensic techniques<\/a> before drawing conclusions.<\/p>\n

\u201c[W]e refine our nuclear forensics capabilities to deter any hostile state from actively facilitating nuclear terrorist attacks against our nation or our allies, as well as to hold states accountable for any inadvertent loss of nuclear material,\u201d said Ashenfelter. \u201cThe purpose of nuclear forensic capabilities is ultimately to influence foreign states\u2019 behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery of unique quasicrystals in trinitite offers hope of a new nuclear forensic tool, though understanding the merit of this claim will take time. The hypothesis is that objects subjected to precise but extreme temperature and pressure conditions atypical on Earth\u2014think of the power of a nuclear blast\u2014will have similar quasicrystalline atomic structures. Researchers would first need to collect material from past nuclear tests for which they have temperature, pressure, and shock metrics to understand how the atomic structure of materials changed in the presence of nuclear reactions. If quasicrystal evidence is consistent across sites with similar metrics, researchers could then create a database that might later be used as a diagnostic tool.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we already identify and measure key properties such as the isotopic properties and chemical forms of nuclear material, we are actively researching other material properties that allow for further discrimination between different process histories in determining the provenance of nuclear material,\u201d said Ashenfelter.<\/p>\n

Must atomic bomb quasicrystals help with nuclear forensics to matter? <\/strong>Long ago, scientists could not imagine that quasicrystalline atomic structures existed in natural or man-made materials because they found them too complicated. But then quasicrystals were discovered in the laboratory and in the aftermath of meteor crashes, lightning strikes, and atomic bomb blasts. Meanwhile, the universe\u2019s stage offers an abundance of uninvestigated meteor crashes and other high-impact collisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the surface of the earth, we only see a small selection of minerals formed under very slow conditions in an oxygenated atmosphere, which really constrains what materials you can form. Maybe that\u2019s atypical for the universe. Maybe [quasicrystals] are much more ubiquitous than we imagine,\u201d Steinhardt said.<\/p>\n

Immediately following the Trinity test blast, Robert Oppenheimer, the \u201cfather of the atomic bomb,\u201d reportedly quoted the Bhagavad Gita: \u201cNow I become death, the destroyer of worlds.\u201d Yet in that same moment, other-worldly quasicrystals offered an unspoken invitation to become life, the creator of worlds. Trinitite\u2019s quasicrystals matter not only because of their potential utility. They matter because they serve as a reminder that the universe reveals its beautiful, complex secrets over time. For as long as humanity fends off the existential threat of nuclear war, quasicrystals invite humanity to witness that unfolding beauty.<\/p>\n

\"Universe. <\/picture>
Universe. By Geralt. Pixabay license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Susan D\u2019Agostino is an associate editor at the <\/em>Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Her writing has been published in <\/em>The Atlantic, Quanta Magazine, Scientific American, The Washington Post, BBC Science Focus, Nature, Financial Times, Undark Magazine, Discover, Slate, Times Higher Education, and<\/em> The Chronicle of Higher Education,… Read More<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Go to Original – thebulletin.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Jun 2021 – Something unexpectedly lovely was created amid the detonation of an atomic bomb 75 years ago: a mathematically perfect quasicrystal. Quasicrystals may be able to determine responsible parties in a nuclear terrorist attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":186757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[2559,1360,450,666,304,1157],"class_list":["post-186756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-chemistry","tag-nuclear-energy","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-physics","tag-science","tag-space-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}