“Ripple: An Investigation of the World’s Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design”, 2021-05-28 (; backlinks):
[cf. Project Excalibur, 4th generation weapon designs] In 1962 the United States conducted its final atmospheric nuclear test series, Operation Dominic. The devices tested were designed and built by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (LRL). During the test series, LRL conducted 4 tests of a radically new design called the Ripple concept. Tests of the Ripple concept demonstrated performance characteristics that eclipse those of all nuclear weapons designed before or since.
For numerous reasons discussed in the article, the Ripple concept was not pursued, but the technology it pioneered has been in continual development—for peaceful purposes—to this day. Until now, very little has been known about these tests and the concept behind them. This article, the result of a multiyear investigation, sheds light on the Ripple program for the first time, allowing for a largely complete account.
Included are the origins of the concept and its designer, the technical characteristics, the large role played by the geopolitical context, the test series in detail, and the cancellation and legacy of the program.
[Reviews evidence that Ripple was a highly-advanced approach to shaped-charge-like overlapping focused waves to burn fusion fuel maximally-efficiently (rendering them inherently ‘clean’), yielding hydrogen bombs of unparalleled weight-yield ratios which could be launched in ICBMs, detonated at high altitudes above missile-defense systems to avoid them. While the concept was proven in the Dominic tests, the nuclear test ban treaties strangled their R&D, and the concept was abandoned. The principles, however, were carried over into civilian research for laser inertial confinement fusion, which continues to this day.]
…The success and potential of the Ripple program, as defined by experimental validation and analysis, has been clearly established. The following facts put this potential into perspective. When compared to the most modern and powerful ballistic missile warhead in the arsenal today—the 475-kiloton W-88—the Ripple concept offers at a minimum 10× the yield-to-weight ratio and does it “clean”. The Ripple concept as it stood in early 1963 was at the very beginning of its development cycle as a potential weapon system. Given further development through testing and complete computational analysis, the Teller-Brown prediction of 50 megatons for a 6,000-pound device by 1965 may have been within reach. In today’s technological environment, after nearly 60 years of continual ICF research and petaflop computing, the potential gains for the Ripple concept are staggering.