First cosmic-ray images of bone and soft tissue

Abstract

More than 120 years after Roentgen's first X-ray image, the first cosmic-ray muon images of bone and soft tissue are created. The pictures, shown in the present paper, represent the first radiographies of structures of organic origin ever recorded by cosmic rays. This result is achieved by a uniquely designed, simple and versatile cosmic-ray muon-imaging system, which consists of four plastic scintillation detectors and a muon tracker. This system does not use scattering or absorption of muons in order to deduct image information, but takes advantage of the production rate of secondaries in the target materials, detected in coincidence with muons. The 2D image slices of cow femur bone are obtained at several depths along the bone axis, together with the corresponding 3D image. Real organic soft tissue, polymethyl methacrylate and water, never seen before by any other muon imaging techniques, are also registered in the images. Thus, similar imaging systems, placed around structures of organic or inorganic origin, can be used for tomographic imaging using only the omnipresent cosmic radiation.

Research and development of particle detectors for muon tomography and the CERN ALICE experiment

“…In addition, the signals from the photon detectors with their amplitude and time relative to the start of the measurement were also stored in the fast digitisers. The distribution of the time difference (coincidence time) between the signal production time of the CCC chambers and the photon detector was found to be within 1 µs (with the FWHM of 0.5 µs) for the HPGe [OL17] and 200 ns for the scintillatorbased photon detector [OL18]. With such a time resolution, the gamma background is small, thus the shielding of the scintillators were not necessary.…”

“…To detect the tertiary photons, two different photon detectors were applied: a HPGe detector for the investigation of small-size (< 10 cm) samples and a scintillator-based detector for the imaging of organic materials with relatively larger size (< 0.5 m) [OL17,OL18].…”

Imaging by muons and their induced secondary particles -- a novel technique

“…The MUon CAmera (MUCA) [7,8] consists of a tracker system and a set of scintillators. The previous is on the top and bottom of the target volume and the latter is around it.…”

“…Figure2. The schematic drawing of the MUCA system examining a bone [7]. Trackers above the target identify muons and the scintillators on the sides detect the secondaries produced inside the target.…”

Atmospheric ray tomography for low-Z materials: implementing new methods on a proof-of-concept tomograph

“…We have found only a few examples of low-Z ART in non-security applications. Bikit et al demonstrated that low-Z materials can be imaged by the simultaneous detection of cosmic muons and photons created via bremsstrahlung inside the investigated bone and soft tissue sample [18,19]. Another example is inspection of nuclear waste encapsulated in concrete matrix.…”