Speaker
Dr
Christopher Morris
(Los Alamos)
Description
Abstract Transmission radiography using cosmic ray muons is a technique first used in the 1950’s by E.P.George[1] to measure the overburden of mine shafts, and most famously by Alvarez[2] to search for hidden chambers in the second pyramid of Chephren in Gaza. The high penetrating power of near horizontal cosmic ray muons has even been utilized in radiographing volcanoes.[3] The high penetration of cosmic ray muons is not suited to radiography of more conventional objects because of the low flux and high penetration. A new technique that uses the scatter of muons to infer path length densities[4] has been developed in Los Alamos and is being applied to a range of practical problems from home land security[5] to reactor imaging [6-8]. The current status of the Los Alamos muon scattering radiography program will be presented.
1. George, E., Cosmic rays measure overburden of tunnel. Commonwealth Engineer, 1955. 1: p. 455-457.
2. Alvarez, L.W., et al., Search for Hidden Chambers in the Pyramids. Science, 1970. 167(3919): p. 832-839.
3. Nagamine, K., et al., Method of probing inner-structure of geophysical substance with the horizontal cosmic-ray muons and possible application to volcanic eruption prediction. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 1995. 356(2): p. 585-595.
4. Borozdin, K.N., et al., Surveillance: Radiographic imaging with cosmic-ray muons. Nature, 2003. 422(6929): p. 277-277.
5. Morris, C., et al., Tomographic Imaging with Cosmic Ray Muons. Science & Global Security, 2008. 16(1-2): p. 37-53.
6. Borozdin, K., et al., Cosmic Ray Radiography of the Damaged Cores of the Fukushima Reactors. Physical Review Letters, 2012. 109(15).
7. Miyadera, H., et al., Imaging Fukushima Daiichi reactors with muons. AIP Advances, 2013. 3(5): p. 052133-052133-7.
8. Perry, J., et al., Imaging a nuclear reactor using cosmic ray muons. Journal of Applied Physics, 2013. 113(18): p. 184909-184909-9.
Primary author
Dr
Christopher Morris
(Los Alamos)
