2018/01/23 by Stylianos Chatzidakis, Zhengzhi Liu, Jason P. Hayward +1 · 24 citations
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Detector #Gaussian process #Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications #Monte Carlo method #Muon #Muon collider #Neutrino Physics Research #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Position (finance) #Scattering #Trajectory #physics.comp-ph #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.5024671
published in Journal of Applied Physics 123(12) (American Institute of Physics)
arxiv created 2018/01/23 · openalex created_date 2018/02/02 · openalex publication_date 2018/03/28 · arxiv updated 2018/04/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This work presents a generalized muon trajectory estimation algorithm to estimate the path of a muon in either uniform or nonuniform media. The use of cosmic ray muons in nuclear nonproliferation and safeguard verification applications has recently gained attention due to the non-intrusive and passive nature of the inspection, penetrating capabilities, as well as recent advances in detectors that measure position and direction of the individual muons before and after traversing the imaged object. However, muon image reconstruction techniques are limited in resolution due to low muon flux and the effects of multiple Coulomb scattering (MCS). Current reconstruction algorithms, e.g., point of closest approach (PoCA) or straight-line path (SLP), rely on overly simple assumptions for muon path estimation through the imaged object. For robust muon tomography, efficient and flexible physics-based algorithms are needed to model the MCS process and accurately estimate the most probable trajectory of a muon as it traverses an object. In the present work, the use of a Bayesian framework and a Gaussian approximation of MCS is explored for estimation of the most likely path of a cosmic ray muon traversing uniform or nonuniform media and undergoing MCS. The algorithm's precision is compared to Monte Carlo simulated muon trajectories. It was found that the algorithm is expected to be able to predict muon tracks to less than 1.5 mm root mean square (RMS) for 0.5 GeV muons and 0.25 mm RMS for 3 GeV muons, a 50% improvement compared to SLP and 15% improvement when compared to PoCA. Further, a 30% increase in useful muon flux was observed relative to PoCA. Muon track prediction improved for higher muon energies or smaller penetration depth where energy loss is not significant. The effect of energy loss due to ionization is investigated, and a linear energy loss relation that is easy to use is proposed.