Dr. Schund, how can we access the nuclear option without all the isotopic busywork, transuranic nuclear reactor diddles, use once and toss ecological footprint, and portability issues?
Official Truth says a nuclear bomb converts mass into energy. The numbers of electrons, protons, and neutrons in a plutonium or uranium pit immediately prior to and immediately after detonation are identical. Prompt energy release averaging 207.1 MeV/Pu-239 fission or 202.5 MeV/U-235 fission is reshuffling of nuclear binding energies from source nucleus to fission product nuclei, plus electrostatic repulsion of the fission fragments. 50 grams of fissioned nuclei deliver a kilotonne energy yield overall.
Pu-239 solid sphere critical mass given 8 cm of depleted uranium external tamper is 4.3 kg (about 3 inches diameter). U-238 solid sphere critical mass given 15 cm of depleted uranium external tamper is 15 kg (about 4.6 inches diameter). Conventional explosives, precision detonation timing, neutron pulse generator, massive tamper, precision machined internal geometries, safeties... A complex, heavy, expensive package delivers the punch plus politically unacceptable fallout. Enviro-whiners will go ballistic and sign strongly worded petitions.
The Strong force, 100 times as strong as electromagnetism, is mediated by gluons acting upon quarks, antiquarks, and themselves as modeled by quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Overslop of the Strong force is the nuclear force binding atomic nuclei. It acts amongst protons and neutrons through gluons participating in virtual pi and rho mesons, the massed vector bosons of nuclear force propagation.
Iron-56 is the third most tightly bound nucleus. It is inert to both nuclear fission and fusion, for any products would contain more internal energy than the starting material. Endothermic photodisintegration of iron stellar cores initiates Type II supernovae through sudden cooling and collapse. UMPOLUNG! - do it the opposite way.
Fe-56 binding energy is 8.79 MeV/nucleon. Why not squeeze out weaponized energy directly? Transiently increase Fe-56 nuclear force by 11%. Liberate 0.967 MeV/nucleon or 54.15 MeV/nucleus. About 200 grams of hugged iron is a kilotonne yield emitted as hard gamma photons. It would be a splendid radiation warhead frying people at lightspeed while mostly sparing valuable infrastructure.
After the transient hug, nuclei would unhug and drastically cool to hard by absolute zero. They would be ravenous for any sort of energy to fill the void. Fry then drastically deep freeze. Any collection of nuclei would do. Every enemy solder would be a potential photonuclear meat bomb followed by a cold punch.
Military prudence has our enemies tunneling their infrastructural naughtinesses hundreds of feet underground. Short of nuclear warheads, long rod penetrators with conventional high explosive packages cannot get down anywhere near that deep. It would be useful to have a nuclear hug trigger that diddles the target location but ignores intervening mass.
Dr. Schund is fond of hugging bricks of purple Euros. Where there is a hug there is a naked baby boy winged angel with a bow and arrow seeking targets. Thus the Qpid, the Quantum-phase interference device.
Start with a surplus Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS with four Pratt and Whitney TF33-PW-100A turbofan engines. Generators on each engine provide net one megawatt electrical power. Lose the silly radome and install paired Qpid field loci, one on each wingtip 130 feet part. One field locus is timelike, propagating through spacetime as though it were not there. The other field locus is spacelike, propagating through spacetime as though it were not there. Where the two 350 KW Qpid field beams volume overlap, atomic nuclei hug 11% tighter in distorted spacetime and a multi-kilotonne blast of gamma rays ensues. As beam overlap gamma emission propagates, its wake slams asymptotic to absolute zero deep cryogenic freeze.
Won't North Korea be surprised?
A fool fries surface targets. That endangers the E-3 Qpid vector aircraft's paint job, ditto 50 miles of atmosphere above it. Pop the magic twanger 1000 feet deep and expediciously obtain a radiation-sterilized nuclear subsidence crater the size and volume of a sports stadium. The absorbed gamma pulse flash-vaporizes rock to explosively inflate and burst an earth bubble, followed by flash freeze to suck its core back in.
Pulsed Qpid is nice, but continuous beam digging a Grand Canyon trench is nicer. The E-3 flies at 500 mph, Mecca to Medina in a twinkling. One E-3 Qpid vector aircraft flying at 30,000 ft has a 90 mile effective beam range, horizontal and vertical (intervening matter being transparent to the separate beams prior to their overlap). The 102,000 mi^2 interdiction area is not the biggest basket of goodies...
...for ripping open 50+ miles of the bottom of the San Andreas fault in six minutes is much bigger still. Dr. Schund made his first, not-USA, sale last week. Would the Pentagon like to submit a generous bid?