Nuclear reactor operation monitoring and dark matter searches

Most of the Dark Matter and high energy astrophysics experiments have developed advanced technologies that may have also application to nuclear detection. These technologies sharing many characteristics such as energy scales, particle type, time structures and combination of high and low background signal levels. We demonstrated high flux of electron neutrino (νe) can be produced at nuclear power reactors via electron capture or inverse beta decay of the fission products and neutron activation on the fuel rods and the construction materials at the reactor core and can be enhanced by loading selected isotopes to the reactor core, and the potential applications and achievable statistical accuracies were examined. In addition, many facets of the detector science overlap with needs for next generation dark matter and neutrino experiments. I will discuss results of our several successful deployments of prototype high purity germanium detectors. I will also discuss reactor operation monitory and shed light on the dark matter searches results. (author)