A high-statistics determination of the differential cross section of elastic muon-electron scattering as a function of the transferred four-momentum squared, $d σ_{el}(μe \to μe)/dq^2$, has been argued to provide an effective constraint to the hadronic contribution to the running of the fine-structure constant, $Δα_{had}$, a crucial input for precise theoretical predictions of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. An experiment called ``MUonE'' is being planned at the north area of CERN for that purpose. We consider the geometry of the detector proposed by the MUonE collaboration and offer a few suggestions on the layout of the passive target material and on the placement of silicon strip sensors, based on a fast simulation of elastic muon-electron scattering events and the investigation of a number of possible solutions for the detector geometry.
Cosmic ray muon, as they pass through a material, undergoes Multiple Coulomb Scattering (MCS). The analysis of muon scattering angle in a material provides us with an opportunity to study the characteristics of material and its internal 3D structure as the scattering angle depends on the atomic number, the density of the material, and the thickness of the medium at a given energy. We have used the GEANT4 toolkit to study the scattering angle and utilize this information to identify the material. We have analyzed the density dependent $\&$ density independent scattering angle and observed vario…
The probability of large-angle scattering for multi-GeV muons in thin ($t/X_0 \sim 10^{-1}$) lead targets is studied. The new estimates presented here are based both on simulation programs (GEANT4 libraries) and theoretical calculations. In order to validate the results provided by simulation, a comparison is drawn with experimental data from the literature. This study is particularly relevant when applied to muons originating from $ν_μ^{CC}$ interactions of CNGS beam neutrinos. In that circumstance the process under study represents the main background for the $ν_μ\to ν_τ$ search in the $τ\to…
A semiconductor tracker for muon scattering tomography is presented. The tracker contains silicon strip sensors with an $80\,μ$m pitch, precision mechanics and integrated cooling. The electronic readout of the sensors is performed by a scalable, inexpensive, flexible, FPGA-based system, which is demonstrated to achieve an event rate of $30\,$kHz. The tracker performance is compared with a Geant4 simulation. A scattering angle resolution compatible with $1.5\,$mrad at the $4\,$GeV average cosmic ray muon energy is demonstrated. Images of plastic, iron and lead samples are obtained using an Angl…
Muons interact with matter via two major interaction mechanisms: ionization and radioactive process, and multiple Coulomb scattering leading to energy loss and trajectory deflection, respectively. For a monoenergetic muon beam crossing an object, the scattering angle follows a Gaussian distribution with a zero mean value and a variance that depends on the atomic number of the material object it traversed. Thus, the measured scattering angle may be used to reconstruct the geometrical and material information of the contents inside the dry storage cask. In traditional X-ray computed tomography, …
Point of colsest Approche algorithm (PoCA) based on the formalism of muon radiogra- phy using Multiple Coulomb scattering (MCS) as information source is previously used to obtain the reconstruction image of high Z material. The low accuracy of reconstruction image is caused by two factors: the flux of natural muon and the assumption of single scattering in PoCA algo- rithm. In this paper, the maximum likelihood method based on the characteristics of Gaussian-like distribution of muon tracks by MCS is used to predict the optimal track of outgoing muon. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC…
The use of muon scattering tomography for the non-invasive characterisation of nuclear waste is well established. We report here on the application of a combination of feature discriminators and multivariate analysis techniques to locate and identify materials in nuclear waste drums. After successful training and optimisation of the algorithms they are then tested on a range of material configurations to assess the system's performance and limitations. The system is able to correctly identify uranium, iron and lead objects on a ~few \text{cm} scale. The system's sensitivity to small uranium ob…
Experimental Demonstration of Soft-Tissue Muon Scattering Tomography
CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research（欧洲核子研究中心）；ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院）；Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC/Universitat de València)（粒子物理研究所（西班牙科学理事会/瓦伦西亚大学））
In muon scattering tomography, the investigated materials are discriminated according to the scattering angle that mainly depends on the atomic number, the density, and the thickness of the medium at a given energy value. The scattering angles at different initial energies also provide the opportunity to classify the incoming muons into a number of energy groups. In this study, by employing the GEANT4 code, we show that the deflection angle exponentially decays as a function of energy, and the numerical values for the current configuration are below the detector accuracy except the initial ene…
A muon scattering tomography system based on high spatial resolution scintillating detector
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院近代物理研究所）；Institute of Deep Space Sciences, Deep Space Exploration Laboratory（深空探测实验室深空科学研究所）
The measurement of muon momentum by Multiple Coulomb Scattering is a crucial ingredient to the reconstruction of νμ CC events in the ICARUS-T600 liquid argon TPC in absence of magnetic field, as in the search for sterile neutrinos at Fermilab where ICARUS will be exposed to ~1 GeV Booster neutrino beam. A sample of ~1000 stopping muons produced by charged current interactions of CNGS νμ in the surrounding rock at the INFN Gran Sasso underground Laboratory provides an ideal benchmark in the few-GeV range since their momentum can be directly and independently obtained by the calorimetric measure…
Cosmic ray muon computed tomography (μCT) is a new imaging modality with unique characteristics that could be particularly important for diverse applications including nuclear nonproliferation, spent nuclear fuel monitoring, cargo scanning, and volcano imaging. The strong scattering dependence of muons on atomic number Z in combination with high penetration range could offer a significant advantage over existing techniques when dense, shielded containers must be imaged. However, μCT reconstruction using conventional filtered back-projection is limited due to the overly simple assumptions that …
Muon energy measurement represents an important issue for any experiment addressing neutrino induced upgoing muon studies. Since the neutrino oscillation probability depends on the neutrino energy, a measurement of the muon energy adds an important piece of information concerning the neutrino system. We show in this paper how the MACRO limited streamer tube system can be operated in drift mode by using the TDC's included in the QTPs, an electronics designed for magnetic monopole search. An improvement of the space resolution is obtained, through an analysis of the multiple scattering of muon t…
Nuclear materials accountability and nonproliferation are among the critical tasks to be addressed for the advancement of nuclear energy in the United States. Monitoring spent nuclear fuel is important to continue reliable stewardship of SNF storage. Cosmic ray muons have been acknowledged a promising radiographic tool for monitoring SNF due to their highly penetrative nature and high energy. Cosmic ray muons are more suitable and have been used for imaging large and dense objects. Despite their potential in various applications, the wide application of cosmic ray muons is limited by the natur…
Muon imaging is one of the most promising non-invasive techniques for density structure scanning, specially for large objects reaching the kilometre scale. It has already interesting applications in different fields like geophysics or nuclear safety and has been proposed for some others like engineering or archaeology. One of the approaches of this technique is based on the well-known radiography principle, by reconstructing the incident direction of the detected muons after crossing the studied objects. In this case, muons detected after a previous forward scattering on the object surface rep…
The scattering angle due to the target volume can be split into two interior angles in the tomographic setups based on the muon scattering, and we call this property as the triangular correlation where the sum of these two interior angles is equal to the scattering angle. In this study, we apply this triangular correlation for a multi-block material configuration that consist of concrete, stainless steel, and uranium. By changing the order of this material set, we employ the GEANT4 simulations and we show that the triangular correlation is valid in the multi-block material setups, thereby prov…
Cosmic ray muons passing through matter lose energy from inelastic collisions with electrons and are deflected from nuclei due to multiple Coulomb scattering. The strong dependence of scattering on atomic number Z and the recent developments on position sensitive muon detectors indicate that multiple Coulomb scattering could be an excellent candidate for spent nuclear fuel imaging. Muons present significant advantages over existing monitoring and imaging techniques and can play a central role in monitoring nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel stored in dense well shielded containers. The main …
We demonstrate that muon tomography can be used to precisely measure the properties of various materials. The materials which have been considered have been extracted from an experimental blast furnace, including carbon (coke) and iron oxides, for which measurements of the linear scattering density relative to the mass density have been performed with an absolute precision of 10%. We report the procedures that are used in order to obtain such precision, and a discussion is presented to address the expected performance of the technique when applied to heavier materials. The results we obtain do…
Highly energetic, cosmic-ray muons can easily penetrate a dry storage cask and yield information about the material inside it by making use of the physics of multiple Coulomb scattering. Work by others has shown this information may be used for verification of dry storage cask contents after continuity of knowledge has been lost. In our modeling and simulation approach, we use ideal planar radiation detectors to record the trajectories and momentum of both incident and exiting cosmic ray muons; this choice allows us to demonstrate the fundamental limit of the technology for a particular measur…
The angular deviation commonly represented by the scattering angle generally serves to provide the characteristic discrimination in the muon scattering tomography. The regular procedure to determine the scattering angle comprises the collection of exactly four hit locations in four detector layers among which two top detector layers are utilized to construct the first vector, whereas the second vector is built by using two bottom detector layers. Although this procedure acts to classify the target volumes in the tomographic systems based on the muon scattering, the scattering angle obtained th…
Inspection of ageing, reinforced concrete structures is a world-wide challenge. Existing non-destructive evaluation techniques in civil and structural engineering have limited penetration depth and don't allow to precisely ascertain the configuration of reinforcement within large concrete objects. The big challenge for critical infrastructure (bridges, dams, dry docks, nuclear bioshields etc.) is understanding the internal condition of the concrete and steel, not just the location of the reinforcement. In most new constructions the location should be known and recorded in the as-built drawings…
The average deflection angle of the tracked muons in the muon scattering tomography exponentially declines in function of the initial kinetic energy, the angular dependence of which provides an opportunity to set out a binary relation between the initial kinetic energy and the average deflection angle, thereby leading to a coarse energy prediction founded on the mean deflection angle in the case of experimental incapabilities or limitations. In this study, we address the problem of the muon energy classification for a tomographic system consisting of 0.4-cm plastic scintillators manufactured f…
In the tomographic configurations based on the muon scattering, the angular variation with respect to the kinetic energy indirectly brings forth the ability to coarsely predict the kinetic energy by using the deflection angle owing to the detector layers. Nevertheless, the angular deviation due to the detector components is expected to be minuscule in addition to a relatively high uncertainty in the case of the plastic scintillators. In the present study, we contrast our current tomographic prototype, which consists of the detector layers manufactured from polyvinyl toluene besides a detector …
We present a piezoelectric-driven uniaxial pressure cell that is optimized for muon spin relaxation and neutron scattering experiments, and that is operable over a wide temperature range including cryogenic temperatures. To accommodate the large samples required for these measurement techniques, the cell is designed to generate forces up to 1000 N, and to minimize the background signal the space around the sample is kept as open as possible. We demonstrate here that by mounting plate-like samples with epoxy, a uniaxial stress exceeding 1 GPa can be achieved in an active volume of 5 mm3. We sho…
