Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin

Managing the Atom Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97004224508

Abstract: Plutonium and tritium are both essential components of modern nuclear weapons. While plutonium is used for fission, the fusion of tritium with deuterium provides a burst of neutron that boosts the fission yield of nuclear weapons. As such, the production and stockpiles of these two elements should be at the core of any efforts to cap and eliminate nuclear arsenals in an irreversible manner. Production in nuclear reactors is the most effective route to acquire tritium, and the only path for plutonium production. Using nuclear reactor physics and modelling, it is possible to estimate how much plutonium and tritium countries with nuclear programs have produced. Furthermore, nuclear reactor simulations can also be used for nuclear archaeology efforts, by which the past operation of a reactor is deduced via on-site isotopic measurements and reactor modelling. This work presents efforts to develop new, open-source software to model nuclear reactor physics, its application to reactors in Israel and North Korea to estimate plutonium and tritium production, and its application for new nuclear archaeology methods.

Bio: A nuclear engineer by training, Julien applies his knowledge on nuclear science and technologies to investigate issues related to nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, advanced reactor technologies as well as policies around nuclear energy. As the project lead for the open-source nuclear reactor physics code ONIX, he also works to promote open-source and transparent scientific tools that can contribute to research in nuclear security and nuclear technologies. Julien received a scientific education both in China and the U.S., and is also interested in studying how the rise of Chinese science affects international collaboration in science (such as the U.S.-China scientific partnership) as well as its impact on the nuclear industry and global nuclear governance.

Julien is currently a research fellow at the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard's Belfer Center and was previously a nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2019 to 2021. He was part of the Science and Global Security research team at Princeton University from 2014 to 2019 and regularly contributes to projects with the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM). Julien holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Princeton University, a M.Sc. in Nuclear Science and Technology from Tsinghua University Beijing, and a Diplôme d'Ingénieur (M.Sc. and B.Sc.Eng.) from Ecole Centrale de Marseille.