Considerations for Designing Experiments to Test the Resilience of Standoff Neutron Detectors Against Malicious Interference Atempts (48)

Abstract

Research into how to conduct future experiments at the McMaster Nuclear Reactor to test the resilience of standoff neutron detectors against malicious interference attempts is presented. The neutron background originating from cosmic neutrons and local neutron fields from other research and commercial operations at the McMaster Nuclear Reactor is considered, and how to minimize the effects of the neutron background is discussed. An extension of the gross counting using Poisson statistics method used in radiation portal monitoring is proposed to determine if a malicious interference attempt is occurring, in situations where the interference increases or decreases the neutron count rate observed by the standoff neutron detectors.