The detector detects hidden nuclear reactors

Researchers have developed a method through which… Nuclear reactors Let it be tracked. This is primarily intended to Nuclear fission processes They can be found that provide materials for weapons.

The detector will have a range of Hundreds of kilometers. It was developed by researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and the University of Hawaii.

Antineutrino detector

To do this, the team uses the processes involved in nuclear fission. During nuclear fission, atoms are formed Neutrons Shoot at. The atoms split and release more neutrons.

On what is called Beta decay These neutrons are divided into one proton, one proton, and one electron Antineutrino on me. The latter is a small elementary particle that has almost no mass and therefore hardly interacts with other matter. This means that they can be detected over long distances.

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The detector can detect these antineutrinos and you Energy level analysis. This data can be used to obtain information about How it works From the reactor core used there Isotopes Which covers it distance He reads.

If nuclear material is produced for the purposes of making nuclear weapons, as a rule a much larger amount of material will be produced Uranium – Fertilized for energy production. This difference can be determined using a detector based on the measured antineutrino number, says the related study in the specialist journal AIP Advances.

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Particles moving faster than the speed of light glow blue

The detector is used Cherenkov effect. There are materials that slow down the speed of light because light bends there. In these materials it can happen that particles move faster than light.

If this happens, a Blue glow. This is similar to this explosion Produced by a supersonic aircraft when it breaks the sound barrier. This effect can be observed in water-filled decay tanks in nuclear power plants.

The detector is also equipped with a type of antineutrino collection basin. In it will Blue traces Measure these molecules. From here you can get information about Flight direction, speed and pedigreed From antineutrino.

Underground antineutrino hunting

One challenge is to actually detect only antineutrinos that are produced in nuclear reactors. The signals are very weak. Only partially A Antineutrino daily Measured from the furthest reactor.

The detector should be on One kilometre Stand underground so as not to detect antineutrinos hitting Earth from space. “Distinguishing between particles is very challenging, and measuring the energy spectrum can take a long time,” he says. Study author Steven Wilson said in a statement.

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So far the detector is only theoreticallybecause the construction will 100 million dollars It costs, Wilson tells Interesting Engineering. For a potential test, the researchers will place their detector in… North East England Prove. This could include nuclear reactors in Great Britain and northern France.

Aside from the high costs, a lot of time must be invested in research to make the detector as accurate as possible. It is conceivable for the scientists that their work will be used as a basis by other researchers to develop better and cheaper detectors.

In the future, it could happen globally network These detectors are constructed. This would make it possible to find out whether countries are operating hidden nuclear reactors and whether they are being used to produce weapons-grade nuclear materials. Depending on how dense the network is, it may be possible to locate these reactors more precisely, a type of triangulation.