Neutrino-Based Tools for Nuclear Verification and Diplomacy in North Korea

Abstract

We present neutrino-based options for verifying that the nuclear reactors at North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center are no longer operating or that they are operating in an agreed manner, precluding weapons production. Neutrino detectors may be a mutually agreeable complement to traditional verification protocols because they do not require access inside reactor buildings, could be installed collaboratively, and provide persistent and specific observations. At Yongbyon, neutrino detectors could passively verify reactor shutdowns or monitor power levels and plutonium contents, all from outside the reactor buildings. The monitoring options presented here build on recent successes in basic particle physics. Following a dedicated design study, these tools could be deployed in as little as one year at a reasonable cost. In North Korea, cooperative deployment of neutrino detectors could help redirect a limited number of scientists and engineers from military applications to peaceful technical work in an international community. Opportunities for scientific collaboration with South Korea are especially strong. We encourage policymakers to consider collaborative neutrino projects within a broader program of action toward stability and security on the Korean Peninsula. Context: Shutdown or repurposing of reactors at YongbyonNorth Korea has built and operated nuclear reactors since the 1960s. As far as public evidence indicates, all functioning reactors have been at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center. Plutonium for North Korea's nuclear weapons program has come from a 5 MW e (20 MW th ) 1 graphite-moderated, gas-cooled, natural uranium-fueled reactor first operated in 1986. 2 Also at Yongbyon is a 100 MW th experimental light water reactor (ELWR), fueled with low-enriched uranium (LEU) 3 and apparently approaching operation. 4 Yongbyon hosts another small research reactor operated intermittently since the 1960s, remnants of a 50 MW e reactor project decommissioned in the 1990s, facilities for nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing, and a uranium enrichment plant. 5

Reactor neutrino applications and coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering

“…Research in IBD applications has come a long way since the original proposal in 1978 and we take the results of Ref. [22], which in turn is based on the performance of the PROSPECT detector [4], as our benchmark in reference to two scenarios relevant to nuclear security:…”

“…We use the same analysis framework as Ref. [22] and can now evaluate what ratio of the measurement precision for either reactor power or plutonium content is for a fixed mass of IBD and CEvNS detectors. The employed likelihood function is quadratic in the parameters of interest and hence all precision scales as the inverse square of detector mass.…”

Colloquium : Neutrino detectors as tools for nuclear security

“…This result can now serve as a benchmark for reactor monitoring use cases involving on-surface detector deployment, e.g. (Carr et al, 2019). The PROSPECT detector design incorporates multiple capabilities that combine to efficiently reject cosmogenic backgrounds.…”

Nu Tools: Exploring Practical Roles for Neutrinos in Nuclear Energy and Security

“…Conversely, a shutdown of a reactor can be verified. 33 At those standoffs, an underground deployment will become necessary to suppress cosmic ray induced backgrounds to an acceptable level. In the third case, monitoring of any facility within a region (∼10,000 m, ∼100 ton-1000 ton detector), the presence of any reactor operation above a certain power level can be detected or excluded.…”