Antineutrino Monitoring of Spent Nuclear Fuel

2016/06/30 by Vedran Brdar, Patrick Huber, Joachim Kopp · 3 citations
Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Electromagnetic shielding #Leakage (economics) #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear material #Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies #Radioactive contamination and transfer #Radioactive waste #Safeguarding #Spent fuel pool #Spent nuclear fuel #hep-ex #hep-ph #nucl-ex

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevapplied.8.054050

published as Phys. Rev. Applied 8, 054050 (2017) · 6 pages, 4 figures, matches published version. Antineutrino fluxes provided in the supplementary material

openalex created_date 2016/07/22 · openalex publication_date 2017/11/29 · arxiv created 2017/12/22 · arxiv updated 2017/12/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Safeguarding spent nuclear fuel is challenging, with contrary requirements of on the one hand hermetically sealing repositories of highly radioactive material to avoid leakage or proliferation, while on the other hand allowing for monitoring. The authors use computer simulations to show that these difficulties can be ameliorated by probing the neutrino flux that is inevitably emitted by spent nuclear fuel, and which penetrates any shielding or overburden. With existing technology, never mind detector concepts currently in prototyping, this method has the potential to play an important role in a multifaceted approach to radioactive waste management.

Citations

• Updated fit to three neutrino mixing: status of leptonic CP violation
• Nuclear reactor safeguards and monitoring with antineutrino detectors
• Neutrino method remote measurement of reactor power and power output

Cited by

• The use of CEvNS to monitor spent nuclear fuel
• Nuclear reactor monitoring with gadolinium-loaded plastic scintillator modules
• Colloquium: Neutrino detectors as tools for nuclear security