yield
アメリカのホワイトハウスは、北朝鮮が水爆実験を成功させたという主張に疑義を呈しました。
White House Disputes North Korea’s Claim of Hydrogen Bomb Test
SEOUL, South Korea ― The White House said Wednesday that initial data from its monitoring stations in Asia were “not consistent” with North Korea’s claim that the nuclear test it carried out earlier in the day was its first test of a hydrogen bomb, a far more powerful weapon than the country had previously built.
The statement by Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, came as the United Nations Security Council condemned the test after a two-hour closed-door meeting, and after China, Britain, France, Japan and other powers indicated that they would consider action against the country.
The United States did not indicate the basis for its skepticism. But the seismic wave left by the explosion was smaller than what most experts would expect from the detonation of a true thermonuclear weapon. Some experts said it was possible that the North had increased the yield of a more traditional device using tritium, a technique that has often been used in the 70-year history of nuclear weapons.
今回取り上げるのは、“yield”という表現です。この単語は、「(作物などの)産出する、(権利など)を譲る」と用いられているのを見かけることが多いですが、今回の記事では軍事（物理）的な意味で用いられています。
『ランダムハウス大英和』（Goo英和）で調べてみると、「4 〔軍事〕 イールド，核出力，(核)弾頭威力：核爆発の威力を，相当する TNT 火薬の量で表したもの」とあり，
yield-to-weight ration
(核弾頭の)爆発重量比
という例がありました。そのためこの文から、「水爆実験の成功が真実であれば、北朝鮮は核爆弾の威力を向上させた」と解釈できます。(ninetails)
