What is it about?
Nuclear reactors emit antimatter particles called antineutrinos during nuclear fission. These particles can travel very large distances, and their emission depends on the processes happening in a reactor. Detecting them can allow remote monitoring of nuclear reactor operations, and support the prevention of nuclear weapons production. One thing they can reveal is how far away a nuclear reactor is operating. This work aims to determine the sensitivity of an antineutrino detector when measuring the distance to a remote nuclear reactor's particle emission.
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Why is it important?
Only a small amount of plutonium needs to be diverted from a nuclear reactor cycle to produce a nuclear weapon. To prevent this, reactor operations are consistently monitored through item accountancy. However, additional information about the composition of the reactor core, and the potential for plutonium extraction, can be revealed by the antineutrino emission. The declaration of the reactor's operations can also be validated as the antineutrino emission is highly dependent on the reactor's operational power. Validating and identifying reactor operations remotely using antineutrinos can add a new technique in the safeguarding toolset.
Perspectives
This work adds a new technique to the reactor monitoring toolset, and one which has not been applied in previous reactor antineutrino studies of this nature. It potentially offers something that will hold up against future reactor developments which may make the current safeguarding methods harder to apply. It also highlights the difficulties developing sufficient particle detectors.
Stephen Wilson
University of Sheffield
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Remote reactor ranging via antineutrino oscillations, AIP Advances, October 2024, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0220877.
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