Advances Towards Readily Deployable Antineutrino Detectors for Reactor Monitoring and Safeguards

Nuclear reactors have served as the neutrino 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. Our LLNL/SNL collaboration has demonstrated that such antineutrino based monitoring is feasible using a relatively small cubic meter scale detector at tens of meters standoff from a commercial PWR. With little or no burden on the plant operator we have been able to remotely and automatically monitor the reactor operational status (on/off), power level, and fuel burnup. Recently, we have investigated several technology paths that could allow such devices to be more readily deployed in the field. In particular, we have developed and fielded two new detectors; a low cost, non- flammable water based design; and a robust solid-state design based upon plastic scintillator. Here we will describe the tradeoffs inherent in these designs, and present results from their field deployments.