Nuclear material accountancy using momentum-informed muon scattering tomography
Abstract
Screening cargo and vehicles to prevent proliferation of unauthorized nuclear and radioactive materials is essential to prevent threats to domestic and international security. Cosmic ray muons attracted attention as a potential next-generation radiographic technique to discover illicit transportation of nuclear and radioactive materials at borders or secure facilities. Unique features of cosmic muons—a high energy and deep penetration depth—enable them to be utilized for radiation probes, especially for large and dense materials. In muon scattering tomography, physical characteristics of target materials are estimated by measuring both incoming and outgoing muon trajectories using muon detectors. To reconstruct 3D tomographic images of target objects, a Point of Closest Approach (PoCA) algorithm is typically used to locate a scattering position, and the scattering angle values are used to map material density. However, high-resolution material mapping is often limited due to the absence of muon momentum information because the expected muon scattering angle depends on two variables: material atomic number and muon momentum. Despite the importance of measuring muon momentum, it is still challenging without deploying large and expensive muon spectrometers. Therefore, a mean muon momentum, 3 to 4 GeV/c, is often used to represent the entire cosmic ray muon spectrum. In this paper,more »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
- OSTI Identifier:
- 2222992
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 2229229
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Annals of Nuclear Energy
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Annals of Nuclear Energy Journal Volume: 197 Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0306-4549
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION; cosmic ray muons; nuclear material accountancy; muon tomography; nuclear security; point-of-closest approach
Citation Formats
Bae, JungHyun, Montgomery, Rose, and Chatzidakis, Stylianos. Nuclear material accountancy using momentum-informed muon scattering tomography. United Kingdom: N. p., 2024.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110240.
Bae, JungHyun, Montgomery, Rose, & Chatzidakis, Stylianos. Nuclear material accountancy using momentum-informed muon scattering tomography. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110240
Bae, JungHyun, Montgomery, Rose, and Chatzidakis, Stylianos. Fri .
"Nuclear material accountancy using momentum-informed muon scattering tomography". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110240.
@article{osti_2222992,
title = {Nuclear material accountancy using momentum-informed muon scattering tomography},
author = {Bae, JungHyun and Montgomery, Rose and Chatzidakis, Stylianos},
abstractNote = {Screening cargo and vehicles to prevent proliferation of unauthorized nuclear and radioactive materials is essential to prevent threats to domestic and international security. Cosmic ray muons attracted attention as a potential next-generation radiographic technique to discover illicit transportation of nuclear and radioactive materials at borders or secure facilities. Unique features of cosmic muons—a high energy and deep penetration depth—enable them to be utilized for radiation probes, especially for large and dense materials. In muon scattering tomography, physical characteristics of target materials are estimated by measuring both incoming and outgoing muon trajectories using muon detectors. To reconstruct 3D tomographic images of target objects, a Point of Closest Approach (PoCA) algorithm is typically used to locate a scattering position, and the scattering angle values are used to map material density. However, high-resolution material mapping is often limited due to the absence of muon momentum information because the expected muon scattering angle depends on two variables: material atomic number and muon momentum. Despite the importance of measuring muon momentum, it is still challenging without deploying large and expensive muon spectrometers. Therefore, a mean muon momentum, 3 to 4 GeV/c, is often used to represent the entire cosmic ray muon spectrum. In this paper, we present a new momentum-informed muon scattering tomography (MST) approach for nuclear material accountancy based on a recently devised fieldable muon spectrometer. This approach uses a new imaging algorithm that improves the current PoCA algorithm by encoding momentum into the scattering angle. In our new algorithm, all muon measurements have a categorized momentum level with a scattering angle. We demonstrate the functionality and performance of momentum-informed MST using computational simulations. The results show that the image resolution is significantly improved, and this approach allows for visually differentiating nuclear materials from non-nuclear materials.},
doi = {10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110240},
journal = {Annals of Nuclear Energy},
number = C,
volume = 197,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2024},
month = {Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2024}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110240
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2023.110240
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Gamma-Ray imaging for nuclear security and safety: Towards 3-D gamma-ray vision
journal, January 2018
- Vetter, Kai; Barnowksi, Ross; Haefner, Andrew
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 878
Radiographic imaging with cosmic-ray muons
journal, March 2003
- Borozdin, Konstantin N.; Hogan, Gary E.; Morris, Christopher
- Nature, Vol. 422, Issue 6929
Some practical remarks on multiple scattering
journal, November 1975
- Highland, Virgil L.
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods, Vol. 129, Issue 2
A Development of Compact Muon Spectrometer Using Multiple Pressurized Gas Cherenkov Radiators
journal, April 2022
- Bae, Junghyun; Chatzidakis, Stylianos
- SSRN Electronic Journal
Geant4 developments and applications
journal, February 2006
- Allison, J.; Amako, K.; Apostolakis, J.
- IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 53, Issue 1
Rapid imaging of special nuclear materials for nuclear nonproliferation and terrorism prevention
journal, May 2021
- Petrović, Jana; Göök, Alf; Cederwall, Bo
- Science Advances, Vol. 7, Issue 21
A generalized muon trajectory estimation algorithm with energy loss for application to muon tomography
journal, March 2018
- Chatzidakis, Stylianos; Liu, Zhengzhi; Hayward, Jason P.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 123, Issue 12
Image reconstruction and material Z discrimination via cosmic ray muon radiography
journal, March 2004
- Schultz, L. J.; Borozdin, K. N.; Gomez, J. J.
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 519, Issue 3
Effects of pi meson decay-absorption phenomena on the high-energy mu meson zenithal variation near sea level
journal, December 1959
- Smith, J. A.; Duller, N. M.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 64, Issue 12
Verification of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Sealed Dry Storage Casks via Measurements of Cosmic-Ray Muon Scattering
journal, April 2018
- Durham, J. M.; Poulson, D.; Bacon, J.
- Physical Review Applied, Vol. 9, Issue 4
Geant4—a simulation toolkit
journal, July 2003
- Agostinelli, S.; Allison, J.; Amako, K.
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 506, Issue 3
Fieldable muon spectrometer using multi-layer pressurized gas Cherenkov radiators and its applications
journal, February 2022
- Bae, Junghyun; Chatzidakis, Stylianos
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Muon Tracing and Image Reconstruction Algorithms for Cosmic Ray Muon Computed Tomography
journal, January 2019
- Liu, Zhengzhi; Chatzidakis, Stylianos; Scaglione, John M.
- IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Vol. 28, Issue 1
The muon spectra near the geomagnetic equator
journal, May 1968
- Allkofer, O. C.; Andresen, R. D.; Dau, W. D.
- Canadian Journal of Physics, Vol. 46, Issue 10
Molière's Theory of Multiple Scattering
journal, March 1953
- Bethe, H. A.
- Physical Review, Vol. 89, Issue 6
Development of compact muon spectrometer using multiple pressurized gas Cherenkov radiators
journal, August 2022
- Bae, Junghyun; Chatzidakis, Stylianos
- Results in Physics, Vol. 39
Momentum-Dependent Cosmic Ray Muon Computed Tomography Using a Fieldable Muon Spectrometer
journal, April 2022
- Bae, Junghyun; Chatzidakis, Stylianos
- Energies, Vol. 15, Issue 7
A binned clustering algorithm to detect high-Z material using cosmic muons
journal, October 2013
- Thomay, C.; Velthuis, J. J.; Baesso, P.
- Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 8, Issue 10
Imaging of high-Z material for nuclear contraband detection with a minimal prototype of a muon tomography station based on GEM detectors
journal, October 2011
- Gnanvo, Kondo; Grasso, Leonard V.; Hohlmann, Marcus
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 652, Issue 1
Statistical Image Reconstruction for Muon Tomography Using a Gaussian Scale Mixture Model
journal, August 2009
- Wang, Guobao; Schultz, Larry; Qi, Jinyi
- IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 56, Issue 4
Developing a cosmic ray muon sampling capability for muon tomography and monitoring applications
journal, December 2015
- Chatzidakis, S.; Chrysikopoulou, S.; Tsoukalas, L. H.
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 804