Discerning whether a nuclear reactor is being used to also create material for nuclear weapons is difficult, but capturing and analyzing antimatter particles has shown promise for monitoring what specific nuclear reactor operations are occurring, even from hundreds of miles away.
Researchers have developed a detector that exploits Cherenkov radiation, sensing antineutrinos and characterizing their energy profiles from miles away as a way of monitoring activity at nuclear reactors. They proposed to assemble their device in northeast England and detect antineutrinos from reactors from all over the U.K. as well as in northern France.
Neutrinos are chargeless elementary particles that have a mass of nearly zero, and antineutrinos are their antimatter counterpart, most often created during nuclear reactions. Capturing these antiparticles and analyzing their energy levels provides information on anything from operational cycle to specific isotopes in spent fuel.
One issue, however, is that antineutrinos from the upper atmosphere and space can muddle the signal, especially as very distant reactors yield exceeding small signals -- sometimes on the order of a single antineutrino per day. Wilson hopes the detector stimulates more discussion in how to use antineutrinos to monitor reactors, including measuring the antineutrino spectrum of spent nuclear fuel or developing smaller detectors for use closer to reactors.Antineutrinos generated in nuclear fission can be measured to remotely monitor the operation of nuclear reactors and verify that they are not being used to produce nuclear weapons, report scientists. ...
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