NPA Seminar: Rachel Carr, USNA, "Possibilities for Neutrinos in Nuclear Security"
The potential for neutrinos as a nuclear security tool has been recognized for nearly 70 years – well before these weakly interacting particles were even detected. As an unshieldable emission from fission products, neutrinos are powerful messengers about the inner workings of reactors, nuclear explosions, submarines, and spent fuel. The flip side of that power is a serious practical weakness: as particle physicists have long known, capturing neutrino signals requires complex and often very large detectors.