Speaker: Elena Guardincerri

P-25: Subatomic Physics

Applications of Muon Radiography

Abstract:

Cosmic-ray muons are free, ubiquitous, very penetrating particles. Muon radiography takes advantage of them to probe objects that, because of their thickness or the shielding around them, would be out of the reach of more traditional radiographic techniques. I will briefly review some of the different techniques currently used to perform cosmic-ray muon radiography and discuss a few applications to actual problems. I will discuss, in particular, the use of cosmic ray muons to image the interior of thick walls for historic preservation purposes, their use to assess the content of dry casks containing spent nuclear fuel, and I will show how they can be used to image shallow geophysical objects.