Stand-alone cosmic-ray tomography with secondary particles

Abstract

The imaging technique of cosmic-ray tomography is usually based on the measurement of muon transmission and muon scattering within the examined volume. Secondary particles produced from the interaction of air shower particles with the target material have been proven to carry complementary information directly related to the target material properties. However, this additional information has not been fully exploited so far. Previous work by the authors [Analysis of Secondary Particles as a Complement to Muon Scattering Measurements. Instruments 2022, 6] showed a novel approach utilizing only the information from secondary particles to successfully reconstruct and discriminate a variety of materials in the context of shipping container scanning with an optimal detector setup and background-free environment. This work builds on the previous results and methods, taking more realistic detector parameters into consideration and investigating their impact on material reconstruction and discrimination. A possible detector setup is discussed, allowing the reconstruction of muons and secondary particle tracks. Three key detector parameters are varied with the aim of validating the approach of the previous work in a more realistic scenario. These parameters are the detection efficiency, the spatial resolution, and the spacing between the detector layers.