Visualization of nuclear decay activity for forensics and jurisprudence

Visualization can play an important role in the successful prosecution of smugglers of interdicted nuclear materials. Nuclear forensics (the tracing of the source of interdicted materials) is grounded in the science of radioactive decay and those scientific databases which have been developed over the past century on nuclear materials properties. However in a court of law and when working with nontechnical law enforcement officials, the process of nuclear isotope decay over time needs to be carefully explained. Most visual presentations of the decay process are static, and those few available dynamic visualization efforts are incomplete. This poster presents new methods for describing and visualizing the dynamics of radioactive decay which capture the radioisotope interaction between initial isotopic state (e.g. some fixed amount of Uranium or Plutonium) and subsequent daughter isotopes which appear and follow their own separate process of nuclear decay. As an example, temporal sequenced pie charts can vividly display quantitative decay amounts over time periods from months to millennia. Multiple approaches to visualize the radioactive decay process are presented and the advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed.