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The passage of muons through matter is dominated by the Coulomb interaction with electrons and nuclei. The muon interaction with electrons leads to continuous energy loss and stopping of the muons. The muon interaction with nuclei leads to angular diffusion. We present experimental images of a nuclear reactor, the AGN-201M reactor at the University of New Mexico, using data measured with a particle tracker built from a set of sealed drift tubes. The data are compared with a geant4 model. In both the data and simulation, we identify specific regions corresponding to elements of the reactor structure, including its core, moderator, and shield.

The stopping cross sections  (E) of silicon for protons and alpha particles have been measured over the velocity range (0.3-1.2) MeV/u from a Si//SiO2//Si (SIMOX) target using the Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) with special emphasis put on experimental aspects. A detection geometry coupling simultaneously two solid-state Si detectors placed at 165° and 150° relative to each side of the incident beam direction was used to measure the energies of the scattered ions and determine their energy losses within the stopping medium. In this way, the basic energy parameter, Ex, at the Si/SiO2 interface for a given incident energy E0 is the same for ions backscattered in the two directions off both the Si and O target elements, and systematic uncertainties in the  (E) data mainly originating from the target thickness are significantly minimized. A powerful computer code has been elaborated for extracting the relevant  (E) experimental data and the associated overall uncertainty that amounts to less than 3%. The measured  (E) data sets were found to be in fair agreement with H. Paul's compilation and with values calculated by the SRIM 06 computer code. In the case of 4 He + ions, experimental data for the -effective charge parameter have been deduced via scaling the measured stopping cross sections to those for protons crossing the same target at the same velocity and compared to the predictions of the SRIM 06 code. It is found that the -parameter values generated by the latter code slightly deviate from experiment over the velocity region around the stopping cross section maximum where strong charge exchanges usually occur.

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