United States-United Kingdom consortium program to demonstrate

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announced recently that it will lead a new international multi-laboratory and university collaboration for nonproliferation research using subatomic particles called antineutrinos.

The Advanced Instrumentation Testbed (AIT) will support the development of detection hardware and algorithms for remote monitoring of nuclear reactors to improve nonproliferation detector capabilities.

The initiative is part of an ongoing nonproliferation research collaboration between U.S. and UK national laboratories and universities and is sponsored by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

“Fission in nuclear reactors generates heat, which is used to pressurize or boil water to turn turbines for electricity generation,” LLNL physicist and AIT principal investigator Adam Bernstein said. “Our goal is to harness a largely neglected aspect of the fission process for practical purposes. This very same fission process results in the emission of enormous numbers of highly penetrating particles known as antineutrinos. In our testbed, we will demonstrate the capability to detect the operations of nuclear reactors at significant distances, using antineutrino emissions.”

Subject to final approval by contributing stakeholders, AIT will be constructed at the site of the Boulby Underground Laboratory, an existing U.K. government-funded deep underground science facility operating in a working potash, polyhalite and salt mine on the northeast coast of England.

An antineutrino detector will be placed in an excavated cavern at the mine site approximately 1,100 meters below ground. It is scheduled to become operational in approximately 2023.

The demonstration will involve observing reactor operations at the Hartlepool two-core reactor complex, which is located 25 kilometers distant from the mine.