Reactor neutrino experiments constitute favorable facilities for studying axionlike particles (ALPs). Using the intense photon flux
produced in the nuclear reactor core, they have the
potential to probe ALPs with masses below 10 MeV. We explore the
feasibility of these searches by considering ALPs produced through
Primakoff and Compton-like processes.
ALPs can subsequently interact with the material of a
nearby detector via inverse Primakoff and inverse Compton-like
scatterings, via axio-electric absorption, or they can decay into
photon or electron-positron pairs. We demonstrate that
reactor-based neutrino experiments have a high potential to test
ALP-photon couplings and masses, currently probed only by
cosmological and astrophysical observations, thus providing
complementary laboratory-based searches. We finally show how
reactor facilities will be able to test previously unexplored
regions in the $\sim$MeV ALP mass range and ALP-electron couplings
of the order of $g_{aee} \sim 10^{-8}$.