Patrick Huber

Antineutrino Research to Provide International Assurance

Scientists and defense personnel have long struggled with nuclear proliferation monitoring in hostile countries. Of particular concern is the heavy water reactor I-40, located in Arak, Iran. Patrick Huber, of the physics department, along with Thomas Shea and graduate students Eric Christensen and Patrick Jaffke, has shown that antineutrino reactor monitoring is feasible and provides otherwise unavailable capabilities.

Neutrinos are subatomic particles created by the decay of radioactive materials, nuclear reactions, or when cosmic rays hit atoms. Antineutrinos are similar to neutrinos, yet they spin in a different direction. Nuclear reactors produce such a quantity or neutrinos and antineutrinos, neither of which cannot be disguised, that measuring neutrino production could help defense agencies monitor reactors to which they have little, irregular, or no access to.

“Nuclear weapons had and continue to have a profound impact on the relation of nations. Nuclear non-proliferation, especially after 9/11, has become a focus of US foreign policy both under Republican and Democrat administrations and continues to drive decisions,” said Huber. “Having better technical tools ultimately provides more elbow room for diplomacy. In the particular case of Iran, our method would provide the international community with a high-level assurance that nothing is amiss, in a timely fashion. And it would provide Iran with a means to demonstrate its peaceful intentions with respect to the reactor at Arak.”

Huber and his team’s most current work was recently published in the prestigious physics journal Physical Review Letters and named “Editor’s Suggestion.” But before all the research, writing, and editing could take place, the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment assisted Huber.

“To pursue this interdisciplinary, high-risk project, I needed time,” said Huber. “The seed grant from ISCE most importantly allowed me to buy out of teaching to create time for this research project. [It] also provided resources to travel and interview experts and witnesses... we performed detailed analysis based on reactor simulations and advanced modeling techniques.”

Those modeling techniques have led the research team to definitely prove that antineutrino monitoring can be done.

“I believe that this work and the attention it got stimulated a lot of thought of how to actually build suitable detectors. It also highlights the strong but often hidden relation between basic science and national security.”

With such interest and need in the current scientific and political landscape, Huber believes this project will focus research and defense activities towards a practical system of reactor monitoring. Currently Huber is part of a collaboration called PROSPECT which seeks to address the problem of how to actually build those detectors.