L D Landau in the Soviet Atomic Project: a documentary study

Abstract

The article presents information about the participation of Academician L D Landau in the Soviet Atomic Project and is based on a study of archive documents of the First Main Directorate. Their analysis points to L D Landau's important contribution to the development of the theory of heterogeneous nuclear reactors and to the computational justification of the first designs of atomic and hydrogen bombs. Many of the quoted documents have never been published before.