Education and Training Series #47: Neutrino and Gen IV Reactor Systems

These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.

These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG). 

Neutrinos were first conceived of in a desperate ploy to save the conservation of energy in nuclear beta decay. From a nuclear engineering perspective, they are an ever present but ultimately inconsequential by-products of nuclear fission. But to particle physicists, nuclear reactors are an essential and extraordinarily bright source of neutrinos, which are responsible for some of the most important advancements of the last 70 years, from the discovery of the neutrino at the Savannah River’s P reactor in 1956, through current times when reactors are used as the source for studies of neutrino fundamental properties. Advances in neutrino detector technology and a recent finding that neutrinos can be used to track the production of plutonium in the core have made it possible for particle physicists to contemplate giving back to the nuclear industry. As a new type of non-invasive instrumentation, neutrino detectors may, for example, have a role to play in non-proliferation safeguard regimes, particularly for advanced reactors. Ultimately, the potential of neutrino applications can only be properly assessed in a collaborative effort between particle physicists and nuclear engineers. This webinar will review the discoveries and other major advances in neutrino physics that have been enabled by nuclear reactors, and explore the ways that neutrino detectors may be used to monitor reactors or as reactor instrumentation.