Track reconstruction and VisIVO visualization of the cosmic secondary charged radiation paths in the detection of heavy nuclear materials using muon tomography.

Catia Petta (University of Catania)

Abstract

A flux of primary cosmic radiation, mostly protons, continuously falls on the Earth. The showers produced by their interactions with the upper layers of the atmosphere are mainly constituted by charged muons. At the sea level the muon rate is about 1 muon/(cm^2 min) and the mean energy of some GeV. This natural flux can be useful as high-energy probe for tomography to detect high-Z materials in liter-sized volumes. PON01_01125 is a project for the realization of a prototype of a muon tomography system. Its target is the inspection of standard containers in order to detect traffic of illegal and dangerous heavy nuclear materials. The project will use research products developed in Astrophysical and Nuclear fields: a suitable detector technology based on strips of plastic scintillators and coupled with a very sensitive photon sensor (Silicon Photomultiplier, SiPM); suitable tracking algorithms for the reconstruction of tomographic images and a smart visualization of results with an imaging software developed for astrophysical research, VisIVO. First simulations and track reconstruction analysis will be described in order to show the performance of VisIVO to produce 3D-images of objects.

Paper ID: P115

Poster Instructions