The Detection of Reactor Antineutrinos for Reactor Core Monitoring: an Overview

There have been new developments in the field of applied neutrino physics during the last decade. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expressed interest in the potentialities of antineutrino detection as a new tool for reactor monitoring and has created an ad hoc Working Group in late 2010 to follow the associated research and development. Several research projects are ongoing around the world to build antineutrino detectors dedicated to reactor monitoring, to search for and develop innovative detection techniques, or to simulate and study the characteristics of the antineutrino emission of actual and innovative nuclear reactor designs. We give, in these proceedings, an overview of the relevant properties of antineutrinos, the possibilities of and limitations on their detection, and the status of the development of a variety of compact antineutrino detectors for reactor monitoring.