Reactor monitoring and safeguards using antineutrino detectors

TL;DR

Antineutrino detectors, originally used in fundamental physics, can be employed for reactor safeguards by monitoring reactor power and fissile inventory through antineutrino flux measurements.

Contribution

This paper reviews how antineutrino detection techniques can be adapted for practical reactor monitoring and safeguards applications.

Findings

Antineutrino flux correlates with reactor power.

Detection methods can verify fissile inventory.

Global efforts are advancing this monitoring technology.

Abstract

Nuclear reactors have served as the antineutrino source for many fundamental physics experiments. The techniques developed by these experiments make it possible to use these very weakly interacting particles for a practical purpose. The large flux of antineutrinos that leaves a reactor carries information about two quantities of interest for safeguards: the reactor power and fissile inventory. Measurements made with antineutrino detectors could therefore offer an alternative means for verifying the power history and fissile inventory of a reactors, as part of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other reactor safeguards regimes. Several efforts to develop this monitoring technique are underway across the globe.