+

𝜋 �� Introduction to
��
￣
muography
+
𝑊 École Européenne Bruxelles III
+
𝜇
Maxime Lagrange .
𝜈𝜇

1
 Structure

1. Introduction to muography

2. Cosmic rays

3. Muons through matter

4. Muon scattering tomography

5. Absorption muography

6. Conclusion
2
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Introduction
Definition: Radiographic imaging with muons (Muography) based on the measurement of absorption or
scattering of cosmic muons interacting with matter

Scattering muography Absorption muography

● Muon are elementary particles with high penetration power.

● Muons interact with matter by mean of electromagnetic interaction.
● Detectors count muons and measure their direction. Measuring absorption rate or scattering
distribution, one can infer the mean density of the object.
3
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography Illustrations from Muons: the little-known particles helping to probe the impenetrable
 Introduction

Muon detectors

Discovery of a big void in Khufu’s Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons 4

École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 History: muon discovery

● Muons were discovered by Carl D. Anderson and Seth

Neddermeyer in a cloud chamber experiment in 1936.

○ He had noticed particles in the cosmic radiation that curved

differently from other known particles when they passed
through magnetic field.

● It was then assumed that their mass was greater than that of an
electron but smaller than that of a proton.

○ Later, it was named as “mu-meson” but due to its weak

interactions and absence of quark composition (not truly qualify as
https://journals.aps.org/pr/pdf/10.1103/Phys
meson but it behaves more like a heavier version of electrons) so Rev.50.263
the name change and became what we know as muon.

5
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 History: muography

● The first cosmic rays muon application was done by Eric George to measure the ice thickness above a
tunnel in Australia in 1955.

● The measured count rate was found to have clear correspondence with the thickness of the
overburden.
● The next major attempt was made by the team of Luis Alvarez in 1969, to search the hidden chambers in
the Pyramid of Khafre in Egypt, using spark chamber and scintillator counters.

George EP. 1955 Cosmic rays measure overburden of tunnel. Commonwealth Engineer Luiz W. Alvarez et al paper in Science 167 (3919)
43, 455–457. 6
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Structure

1. Introduction to muography

2. Cosmic rays

3. Muons through matter

4. Muon scattering tomography

5. Absorption muography

6. Conclusion
7
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Muons

Particle charge 𝑞 mean life 𝜏 mass 𝑚

𝑒 -e > 6.6 x 1028 yr 0.511 MeV

𝜇 -e 2.2 x 10-6 s 105.7 MeV

● Muons are elementary particles of the lepton family, like electrons.

● Muons have a “long life-time”: at a muon travels a distance .

● Muons have a high penetration power.

○ Having a greater mass than electron, they decelerate slower than electrons in matter.

● Muon decays systematically into an electron and 2 neutrinos.

8
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Cosmic muons - a cosmic origin…

● Cosmic muons are the final decay products of nuclear

interactions of cosmic particles with atoms of the
upper atmosphere.

● Cosmic particles are elementary particles but also

nuclei.

○ The cosmic radiation incident at the top of the terrestrial

atmosphere includes all stable charged particles and nuclei
with lifetimes of order 106 years or older.

● “Primary” cosmic rays are particles accelerated at

astrophysical sources and “secondaries” are those
produced in interaction of the primaries with interstellar
gas.

9
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography Particle Data Group Cosmic Rays review
 Cosmic muons - a cosmic origin…

● Physicist are not sure about the sources of the

primary cosmic rays.

● There is a wide variety of potential sources:

● Supernovae: explosion of a dying star

● Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN): accretion

of matter by a supermassive black hole at
the center of its host galaxy emitting
non-stellar radiation.

10
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Cosmic muons - …but produced on earth!
● Muons are produced high in the atmosphere (typically 15
km) and the result of a cascade of nuclear interactions
between cosmic rays and air molecules.

○ They typically lose 2 GeV of kinetic energy while passing through the
atmosphere.

● Muons (and neutrinos) are the products of decay chain of

charged mesons (𝜋±, 𝘒±).

○ The excess of free and bound protons over free and bound neutrons in the
primary spectrum and the fact that they are more 𝜋+ and 𝘒+ than 𝜋- and 𝘒-
in the forward fragmentation region of proton initiated interactions creates
and asymmetry in the muon charge ratio.
Introduction to Cosmic Rays and Extensive Air Showers

○ Mean energy at sea level is about 4 GeV.

● At sea level, muon flux is

11
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Cosmic muons - …but produced on earth!

Artist view of a cosmic ray air shower, ASPERA/Novapix/L. Bret

12
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Cosmic muons - …but produced on earth!

13
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Structure

1. Introduction to muography

2. Cosmic rays

3. Muons through matter

4. Muon scattering tomography

5. Absorption muography

6. Conclusion
14
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Muons through matter - Multiple Coulomb scattering
● A charged particle traversing a medium is deflected by many
small-angle scatters. Most of this deflection is due to Coulomb
scattering from nuclei (figure 1).
figure 1

𝜇
+
+
●
+ Atoms nuclei (protons and neutrons)

+
𝜇 Muon with negative electric charge

Attractive force due to

+ electromagnetic interaction

Incoming and outgoing muon

+ + directions are different
15
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Muons through matter - Multiple Coulomb scattering
● The bigger the nucleus, the stronger the electromagnetic
interaction and the larger the deflection is.
figure 1

● The more nuclei the muon meets along its path, the more
deflection it will undergo.

Scattering Material density [g.cm3] Atomic number Z

amplitude (related to number of nuclei per unit of volume) (number of proton per nuclei)

Large Large Large

Medium Large Low

Medium Low Large

Low Low Low

16
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Muons through matter - Multiple Coulomb scattering

● At a macroscopic scale, it is a random process involving

multiple small deviations (figure 2). After traversing a block of
material will get both displaced and scattered .
figure 2
● Scattering amplitude is related to the muon momentum
kinetic energy (the “speed of the particle”).
Particle Data Group, passage of particles through matter

● The more kinetic energy the muon has, the smaller the figure 2
scattering.
○ Why ?

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École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
Muons through matter - “Low energy muon”

18
Muons through matter - “High energy muon”

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 Muons through matter - Multiple Coulomb scattering
perpendicular muons with kinetic energy of 4GeV

U: Uranium, with atomic number Z = 92

Fe: Iron, with atomic number Z = 26 20

École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Muons through matter - Energy loss
Particle Data Group, passage of particles through matter

● Charged particles traversing matter lose energy

via electromagnetic interaction.

● The energy loss described by the Bethe-Bloch

formula.

● The amount of energy loss depends on the material

element (number of protons and neutrons) and
density (number of nuclei per unit of volume).

Bethe-Bloch

● When a muon losses all of its kinetic

energy in matter, it decays.

21
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Summary
Scattering
● Muons undergo scattering when passing through matter.

● The higher material density, the larger the scattering.

● The larger atomic number, the larger the scattering.

● The higher muon kinetic energy, the smaller the scattering.

Energy loss
● Muons lose kinetic energy (“speed”) when traversing
matter.

● After losing most of its kinetic energy, the muon

decays.
22
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Structure

1. Introduction to muography

2. Cosmic rays

3. Muons through matter

4. Muon scattering tomography

5. Absorption muography

6. Conclusion
23
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Muon Scattering Tomography (MST)

Muon Scattering Tomography (MST) is an imaging technique utilizing the scattering behaviour of cosmic
muons within the object of interest in order to estimate its relative density.

x y

24
Illustration from Passive 3D imaging of nuclear waste containers with Muon Scattering Tomography
 Muon Scattering Tomography (MST)

x y

25
Pictures from Passive 3D imaging of nuclear waste containers with Muon Scattering Tomography
 Step 1 - Data acquisition

��

● Detector planes measure muon X and Y position.

○ After detector alignement, the Z position of each plane is known.

Upper
detectors
● Data acquisition time depends on the task, ranging from 10
min up to days.

○ In the context of nuclear waste imaging you have no time constraint unlike
for cargo scanning.

Lower
detectors
z

x y
26
Step 1 - Data acquisition
�� Muon hits

27
 Step II - Tracking
𝜇 ● Muons traverse detector layers in straight line.

● Detectors record the muon position a.k.a “Hit”

Incoming track
Detector layer ● Upper and lower muon hits are fitted independently
and will be used to compute scattering angles.

Object

Outgoing track

28
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
Step II - Tracking

After tracking, the following variables are computed:

● , : Respectively the zenith angle of incoming and outgoing tracks

● , : Respectively the azimuthal angle of incoming and outgoing

tracks

● : The scattering angle between incoming and outgoing tracks.

Given the two tracks v1 and v2, it is computed as:

While will be used by the reconstruction algorithms, ,

and can be used for event filtering purposes.

29
 Step II - Tracking
Muon hits Muon angular distributions

30
 Step III - Muon path reconstruction
Path reconstruction: Uses information on muon position and tracks to infer the muon path within the
object

● The true muon path within the object is unknown.

incoming track

● Using incoming and outgoing track, path reconstruction algorithms

infer the muon path within the object.

outgoing track

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École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Step III - Muon path reconstruction
Path reconstruction: Uses information on muon position and tracks to infer the muon path within the
object

● The true muon path within the object is unknown.

incoming track

● Using incoming and outgoing track, path reconstruction algorithms

infer the muon path within the object.

● Point Of Closest Approach (POCA) is a commonly used algo.

POCA point ⋄ Assumes muon scatters only once at the closest point between
incoming and outgoing track.

● The estimation of the scattering location and the scattering angle will
outgoing track
then be used by the image reconstruction algorithms.

32
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Step III - Muon path reconstruction

Scattering location provides meaningful information about the object density. Denser regions are more
likely to scatter muons, and thus create a POCA point.

3D POCA points cloud POCA points 2D histogram

33
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
Step III - Muon path reconstruction
Muon angular
Scattering locations
distributions

34
 Step V - Post processing
MST reconstruction algorithm outputs (scattering locations, scattering angles, density maps) can be used as input of
Machine learning algorithms for segmentation, classification, clustering, etc…

Clustered voxel score

Clustering Voxel scores Sfinal map
map through k-means++
● Clustering can be applied to scattering
locations (e.g POCA points) or voxels scores
(Sfinal).

● Clustered object can the be classified

INPUT OUTPUT

Clustering and Example in Material Identification in Nuclear Waste Drums using Muon Scattering and Multivariate Analysis 35
 MST - Summary
INPUT OUTPUT

1. Data acquisition
��

Hits
36
MST - Summary
INPUT OUTPUT

1. Data acquisition

2. Tracking

● From muon hits, computes incoming and outgoing

muon tracks assuming straight line trajectory.

● Reject background tracks based on hits timing, hit

clusters, track 𝜒2, etc…

● Compute scattering angles 𝑑𝜽

Hits Tracks
37
MST - Summary
INPUT OUTPUT

1. Data acquisition

2. Tracking

3. Path reconstruction

● Some algorithms handle both path and scattering

density reconstruction

● Scattering location provide relevant information on Scattering locations

material density

Tracks

+
Hits 38
MST - Summary
INPUT OUTPUT

1. Data acquisition

2. Tracking

3. Path reconstruction

4. Scattering density reconstruction

Scattering angles
● Associate a scattering density estimator to each region of

+ the volume

Scattering locations 39
MST - Summary
INPUT OUTPUT

1. Data acquisition

2. Tracking

3. Path reconstruction

4. Scattering density reconstruction

5. Post processing

● Post processing is not mandatory

● ML brings new tools which are

relevant!

● Material classification, shape

recognition, segmentation, clustering,
anomaly detection, etc…

40
 Structure

1. Introduction to muography

2. Cosmic rays

3. Muons through matter

4. Muon scattering tomography

5. Absorption muography

6. Conclusion
41
École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 Absorption tomography - Object measurement

Absorption muography is a counting experiment utilizing the absorption of muon in matter.

By counting the number of absorbed muons in a given region of the target volume, one can infer its density.

��

Muon detector

42
 Absorption tomography - freesky measurement

The measured flux of muons through the object is then compared to the “freesky” muon flux.

The ratio between the two measured fluxes gives the transmission rate, which is related to the
properties of the material.
��

Muon detector

43
 Muon detector

Discovery of a big void in Khufu’s Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons 44

École Européenne Bruxelles III, Introduction to muography
 IV - Detectors for
muography application

45
MUTOMCA

46
Picture from Muographers 2023
MUTOMCA: Muon tomography for shiedled casks

● Shielded casks inspection via muon scattering tomography,

detect spent fuel assemblies, for re-verification purposes.

● Only muography can achieve such an imaging task (X rays get

absorbed in dense materials)

● Drift tubes based detector leftovers from CMS muon chamber

production.

● Challenging environment because of material activity and

logistic constraints.

● Few days of data taking in 2023, data currently being processed

47
MUTOMCA: shielded casks

48
MUTOMCA: Muon tomography for shielded casks

49
MUTOMCA: tracking strategy
A robust noise cancelling strategy was implemented in the track
reconstruction software to remove the random radioactivity hits recorded
together with muon tracks:

1. Time filter: exploit the time correlation of muon hits (neutrons and
gammas arrival time is uncorrelated).

50
MUTOMCA: tracking strategy
A robust noise cancelling strategy was implemented in the track
reconstruction software to remove the random radioactivity hits recorded
together with muon tracks:

1. Time filter
2. Space filter and cluster filter: while the muon hits forming a track are
connected, noise hits are more likely to be isolated

Cluster

51
MUTOMCA: tracking strategy
A robust noise cancelling strategy was implemented in the track
reconstruction software to remove the random radioactivity hits recorded
together with muon tracks:

1. Time filter
2. Space filter and clustering
3. Pattern Recognition: It is linear regression of the wire coordinates of
selected hits: it is useful to identify track candidates.

52
 MURAVES: MUon RAdiography of VESuvius
www.framezone.it

● Target:
○ Mt. Vesuvius located in the south of Italy near city of
Naples.

Why?
○ One of the most dangerous active volcanoes in the
world with more than half a million people living in Latest structural modification during the eruption of 1944
the red zone.
○ Muography can shed light on the distribution of
different densities along the body of the volcano
providing a direct image of the layers that form the
structure of Vesuvius.

● How?
○ 4 MURAVES telescopes housed inside a container
located @1500m from the crater.
○ 3 detectors point towards Mt.Vesuvius and one
collects freesky reference data.

53
MURAVES @ Mt.Vesuvius
 MURAVES: MUon RAdiography of VESuvius

● The detection setup of MURAVES:

○ 3 tracking hodoscopes (or “telescope”) consisting of

triangular scintillator bars coupled to SiPMs via a
wave-length fiber embedded through the center of each
bar.

○ Each tracker has 4 XY tracking stations of 1m² active

area, distributed along a length of ~ 2m, with 60cm-thick
lead wall between 3rd and 4th station.

○ Each tracking station is made of 2 adjacent modules, One of the MURAVES hodoscope
where each module consisting of 32 triangularly shaped
bars glued together in a roughly 50cm wide half-plane.

The 32 scintillator bars and WLS fibers assembled in a half of a planar

array (1 module) 54
 MURAVES: MUon RAdiography of VESuvius
● Measurement principle and initial datasets:

○ The experiment maps the mean density of the matter crossed by muons, through the measurement of the
muon flux that reach the detector as a function of θ and 𝜑.

○ Its ratio with the muon flux measured in freesky gives a muon transmission

55
 MURAVES: MUon RAdiography of VESuvius
● Preliminary results:
○ The visible cone was divided into 3 regions, further subdivided in left and right parts in order to measure
possible asymmetries between the slopes of the volcano.

● A measurement of the density asymmetry

is obtained indicating density

asymmetry variations between different

layers.

● More data are being accumulated and a

thorough assessment of possible biases is
going.

Top layer shows right Middle layer shows left Bottom layer same as
side more dense than side more dense than middle layer but
left side right side stronger difference 56
between right and left
TOMUVOL

57
 References
● “Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool”, L. Bonechi and R. D’Alessandro and A. Giammanco,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revip.2020.100038

● “Figures of Merit for the Application of Muon Tomography to the Characterization of Nuclear Waste
Drums-19253”, P. Stowell et al.

● “Passive 3D imaging of nuclear waste containers with Muon Scattering Tomography”, C. Thomay et al 2016 JINST
11 P03008, https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/11/03/P03008

● “First results on material identification and imaging with a large-volume muon tomography prototype”, S.
Pesente et al, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2009.03.017

● “Angle Statistics Reconstruction: a robust reconstruction algorithm for Muon Scattering Tomography”, M.
Stapleton et al 2014 JINST 9 P11019, https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/9/11/P11019

● “Image reconstruction and material Z discrimination via cosmic ray muon radiography”,

58
 References
● “Muon tomography for dual purpose casks (MUTOMICA) project”, D. Ancius et al.,

● Check presentations from Muographers Conferences (2021, 2022, 2023)

59