The feasibility of muography for geological survey and mining exploration has been demonstrated in many works around the world, since the first steps of muography. It was in 1955, as documented, the first use of muons was to measure the ice thickness above the tunnel of a mine in Australia.
Muography with muon telescopes in an underground setting has an easy side due to the absence of the...
Sakurajima volcano is one of the world's most active volcanoes with over 3,000 of explosive eruptions during the last five years. A muography observatory is under construction in international collaboration since 2017 at a distance of approx. 2,800 m in south-west direction from the active craters, called Minamidake and Showa [1,2]. Currently, the Sakurajima Muography Observatory (SMO) is...
We describe the Muography Program to study the volcanoes ranging from the Colombian Andes. We discuss the developed simulation framework covering the cosmic rays impinging the upper Earth's atmosphere, the geomagnetic field modulation, the particle showering along the atmosphere, the muon flux passing through the volcano edifice, the particle-detector interaction and the detector response. We...
The use of conventional imaging techniques becomes problematic when faced with challenging logistics and confined environments. In particular, such scenarios are not unusual in the field of archaeological and mining explorations as well as for nuclear waste characterization. For these applications, even the use of muography is complicated since the detectors have to be deployed in difficult...
Muography instrumentation presents a wide range of practical challenges, since the implementation environment differs from the high energy physics laboratory conditions. The presentation will briefly overview the pros and cons of existing technologies, and gaseous detectors in particular. The practical challenges are partially environmental, such as thermal cycling or high humidity, partially...
The rapidly evolving field of Muography opens an outstanding way to reveal density anomalies inside hill-sized objects. The cosmic muons lose thei energy gradually and penetrate hundreds of meters into the ground, thus their differential local flux correlates with the density-length they traveled through.
In case of underground muography one exploits the low background and the higher flux...
Applications of both cosmic-ray (CR) muons and neutrons have grown in numbers in the last decades. Measurements of flux attenuation (radiography) and scattering angles (tomography) of CR muons have been successfully applied to the inspection or monitoring of large natural and civil structures, to the search for heavy metals in container and trucks, to the control of nuclear wastes, and much...
We plan to build a prototype muon tomography system for material identification utilizing multiple Coulomb scattering suffered by cosmic ray muons while passing through a matter. The resultant deflection from the original trajectory can be represented by a Gaussian distribution dependent on several physical properties of the matter (density $\rho$, atomic number $Z$) and also the muon...
Muon radiography applies to different situations and is
particularly suitable for subsoil imaging. The methodology can be used in order to carry out civil and archaeological investigations. This kind of applications need the muon telescope to be installed below the region to be investigated. The shape and size of such a muon detector have to reflect this necessity.
A novel borehole...
We are developing nucelar emulsions for muographys at Nagoya University and applied to many targets. In this talk, I'll present current status and new progress.
Cosmic-ray muons which impinge upon the Earth’s surface can be used to image the density of geological and man-made materials located above a muon detector. The detectors used for these measurements must be capable of determining both the muon rate and angle of incidence. Applications of this capability include geological carbon storage, natural gas storage, enhanced oil recovery, compressed...
Muon trackers are used for both scattering and transmission muography. When the properties of the object change over time, event timestamping is essential to study the temporal dynamics of the system. In addition, underground measurements present supplementary deployment constraints in terms of volume, weight and gas management, among others. The T2DM2* project at the Low Background Noise...
Cosmic-ray radiation, thanks to its high penetration capability and relative abundance, has been successfully used in scientific research and civil applications for a long time. For example, techniques based on the attenuation of cosmic-ray muons (muon radiography) or on their angular scattering (muon tomography) have been used to study the inner structure of volcanoes, to search for hidden...
Muon tomography is a non-invasive technique able to scan the internal density of large structures. This technique infers the density of an object by tracking the number of muons received by a detector, before and after traversing a structure. The amount of density met by a muon on its path minimizes its survival probability in a predictable manner, hence diminising the average flux received by...
The MUon RAdiography of VESuvius (MURAVES) project aims at the study of the summital cone of Mt. Vesuvius, an active volcano near Naples, Italy. This muographic profile combined with the data from gravimetric and seismic measurement campaigns will be used for better defining the volcanic plug at the bottom of the crater.
We report on a series of simulation studies that are being conducted to...
The literature concerning muography has steadily increased in recent years, but so far very few publications have taken into account the true complexity of rocks in different continents, each continent having a different history and hence different geological features. The same is also valid for the question how deep underground muography can be applied. This is not straightforward because of...
The intense hydrothermal activity occurring at La Soufrière de Guadeloupe, French Lesser Antilles, is a major concern for volcanologists at the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Guadeloupe (OVSG) and the local population that lives nearby. Partly hosted within the andesitic lava dome, this hydrothermal system, continuously fueled with meteoric waters, is indeed responsible for...
The MURAVES experiment aims at the muographic imaging of
the internal structure of the summit of Mt. Vesuvius,
exploiting muons produced by cosmic rays.
Though presently quiescent, the volcano carries a dramatic
hazard in its highly populated surroundings. The
challenging measurement of the rock density distribution
in its summit by muography, in conjunction with data from
other...
In this work we analyze the data sets of two muon imaging and monitoring experiments carried out using a portable muon detector conceived for geosciences applications at the Mont Terri Underground Rock Laboratory (URL), Switzerland. This underground facility is located in the Jura Mountains in north-western Switzerland, at a depth of ~300 meters below the Earth's surface. The region hosts two...
During the last decade, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has been accumulating considerable experience in the development of muon radiography techniques with a focus on potential applications for nuclear security and safeguards. A unique muon tomography system with the ability to measure muon momenta, the Cosmic Ray Inspection and Passive Tomography (CRIPT) detector, has been operational at...
Absorption muography has many applications, but it can typically be divided into two categories based on the detector location: underground or surface measurements. The latter case started in volcanological application, but nowadays multiple applications arise besides basic muographic researches e.g., archaeology, and building structural imaging. In my presentation, I would like to briefly...
MST is a major non-destructive technique to detect high-atomic number (Z) and high-density (⍴) materials by finding the deviation in muon tracks. Both numerical simulation and experimental activities are being carried out towards assembling a gaseous ionization detector-based MST system at SINP. A prototype setup has been simulated using Geant4. Based on scattering parameters, an algorithm...
The LouMu team joins together specialists in particle detectors and in cosmic ray analyses, geophysicists and science communicators to muograph an underground gallery of an old mine, now open to visitors of a science museum. The muon telescope is made of Resistive Plate Chambers developed to operate stably and with low consumption at remote locations, and it has been tested in the Coimbra...
We are currently developing a borehole detector using nuclear emulsions. Because of the high resolution of nuclear emulsions, the detector can be inserted into the borehole whose diameter is 75mm without losing angular accuracy or other performance characteristics even if the size of nuclear emulsions is reduced. Furthermore, no power supply is required. In this poster, we will report the...
We have developed a technique for non-destructive inspection of huge structures such as the Egyptian pyramids and nuclear reactors using cosmic rays, which have high material penetration ability. In this study, we proposed a new application of this technique to the cavity exploration of trees. We used nuclear emulsion as a cosmic-ray detector. The non-destructive inspection technique using...
By taking advantage of our previous experiences in the development of muon detectors, such MuTe project in Colombia and AMIGA in Argentina, our group is developing detectors for muography and multi-purpose applications. Our prototype detectors use different modules of plastic scintillators with embedded optical fibres and 64 channel multi-anode photomultiplier tubes (PMT) with a common dynode,...
Nuclear emulsion films packed in aluminum laminated sheet were installed in a 2.9m-deep-pool.We observed cosmic rays for 13 days, and then calculated the muon flux up to about 600 MeV.
In this session, we would like to discuss the measurement results of muon flux by comparing with the measurement data of BESS and the simulated data by PHITS, with considering the systematic errors from the...
The precise measurement of low-energy muon spectra is required to improve muography of small-sized objects. We developed a 5-meter-length, rotatable, MWPC-based spectrometer to precisely measure the energy spectra of muons from 0.5 GeV to 5 GeV between vertical and horizontal directions [1]. It is a consecutive series of nineteen detectors with a positional resolution of approx. 4 mm and lead...
The design and development of detectors for muography is in constant demand of the usage of semiempirical models and simulations. In this contribution we present Meiga, a framework conceived for simulation and reconstruction of muography applications. This framework takes a simulated muon flux at ground level and propagates it through a given material where the detectors are located. It uses...
Muon radiography can be a powerful tool to study the internal density structure of large objects at a few hundred meters scale. However, background noise can reduce significantly the efficacy of this technique if not adequately eliminated. In our cosmic ray muon radiography experiment to image the internal density structure of the Wudalianchi volcano in northeast China, the background noise...
In the last decades, several attempts have been made to investigate internal structures of large bodies, such as volcanoes, with transmission muography. High spatial resolution and reduction of the strong background noise due to protons, electrons and scattered low energy muons, are the main challenges for this technique. As a possible solution to fulfill these requirements, muography with...
It can be reasoned that many emerging scientific disciplines arise when the conventional sciences cross paths in a manner not seen before. Events like these may lead to the rapid development of new methodologies, concepts, and technologies as the collaboration between previously separate research communities forms a fruitful background to further developments. This is the case also with...
We present a feasibility study for a new muography technique, MAGnetic field Imaging by Cosmic-ray MUons (Magic-µ), whose general principles are introduced in another presentation. This new application exploits the charge of cosmic-ray muons, which causes them to shift their trajectory in response to magnetic flux density. As a first case study, we simulated the measurement of the field...
Muography is an technique that can image objects by tracking cosmic-ray-produced muons, which are unstable leptonic particles with a mass of 207 MeV and a mean lifetime 2.2 μs. Muography ispotentially useful for discovering voids inside the Great Pyramids. Our computer simulation of muography focus on studying the great Pyramid, “Khufu,” to discover voids inside it using an advanced muon...
There is a wide variety of applications in muography. These include engineering, border control, tunnel detection, cave mapping, architecture, archaeology, volcanology, mineral exploration, mining, rock mechanics, water exploration, and many types of monitoring applications. As an application and a discipline, muography is currently shifting from its pioneering stage to a transdisciplinary...
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 compromises 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...
Machine learning algorithms have preliminarily been shown to have the potential to predict volcanic eruptions by training on muon data. The high-energy particles are used to map the interior of the volcano, chiefly due to muon's relatively high mass. In this poster, we discuss opportunities in this area. Challenges include curating the large-scale datasets that are necessary for deep learning...
Cosmic-ray muon radiography, also called muography, can exploit the internal structure of an object that muons traversed. In the conventional absorption method, transmission or absorption ratio to background terrestrial muon flux can determine the density length. After the scattering method was invented, muography can inspect nuclear materials' existence in targets. The identification is...
Atmospheric ray tomography (ART) uses the muons and electrons for detecting objects and their composition. In this talk I will describe some new methods and a proof-of-concept tomography system developed for the ART of low-Z materials. Recently we introduced the Particle Track Filtering (PTF) and Multi-Modality Tomographic Reconstruction (MMTR) methods. Having Geant4 models we optimized...
Muography has many possibilities ranging from imaging volcanoes to observing civil infrastructures or even small scale objects. G.F. Knoll has laid out the fundamentals of radiation detection and measurement. However, what is still lacking is the testing and verification environments for muography detectors. In this work, we will present a few thoughts on such a possible muography test and...
This presentation will focus on the application of muon radiography to the imaging of civil infrastructure, specifically its use in the location, characterisation and monitoring of hidden voids and shafts in railway tunnels. Results from a series of measurements made in railway tunnels on the UK’s rail network in which a previously unknown void was located will be discussed alongside results...
The aim of the BLEMAB project (BLast furnace stack density Estimation through on-line Muon ABsorption measurements) is the application of the muon radiography techniques in order to obtain the imaging of a blast furnace inner zone. In particular, the goal of the study is to charachterize geometry and size of the so called "cohesive zone", i.e. the spatial region where the slowly downward...
Muography can be utilized as a Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) technique to perform preventive maintenance of industrial equipment, quality control of production processes and risk assessment in the context of the heavy industry. The great penetration power of muons in matter makes this technique interesting to inspect large and dense industrial structures such as cauldrons, furnaces and pipes....
The long-term disposal of nuclear waste is a pressing global problem. Most countries are following similar routes of developing one or more geological disposal facilities (GDF) deep underground. The potential role that muon tomography can play in the construction and operation of such a facility is currently under consideration across Europe. The presentation will focus on a number of aspects...
In the UK nuclear industry, muon imaging is gaining traction as a credible option in the toolkit of techniques for monitoring and inspection of waste packages arising from decommissioning activities across the UK nuclear estate. Since 2009, the National Nuclear Laboratory has collaborated with the University of Glasgow and Lynkeos Technology Ltd. to develop muon imaging techniques for such...
Only a small fraction of cargo is inspected and even smaller fraction of illegal goods are detected. Today, the most widely used technology for scanning vehicles, ranging from vans and trucks to railcars, is gamma-ray and X-ray radiography. Cosmic-ray tomography (CRT) is considered as beyond the state-of-the-art technology in cargo screening. We will bridge the major security gap for fast and...
Ageing civil infrastructure poses a huge problem for the modern world. In the example of transport bridges, structural integrity defects can result in disruption, massive economic losses, and in extreme cases of failure, even tragedy. Inspection technologies in use today can hardly be called ideal: X-rays can provide high-resolution images but their usage is restricted by health and safety...
We will review the different activities and recent developments of muography at CEA-Saclay. In the last year, several new telescopes have been manufactured thanks to the partnership with a PCB company. Up to 12 telescopes can now be run in parallel on various projects. The latest improvements include a spatial resolution lower than 200 microns and a gas consumption yielding about 2L/day only....
