One-sided muon tomography - A portable method for imaging critical infrastructure with a single muon detector

Boniface, K.; Anghel, V.; Erlandson, A.; Jonkmans, G.; Thompson, M.; Livingstone, Steve

doi:10.48550/arxiv.1605.01565

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Since muon scattering is not especially sensitive to fuel burnup, there is little change in the measured muon scattering through a cask as fission products decay, so the previous history of the fuel does not need to be known from operator declarations or require any corrections. There has been a large amount of work in simulation showing the potential usefulness of the technique for monitoring encapsulated waste [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”

Section: Fuel Cask Verificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmic Ray Muon Radiography Applications in Safeguards and Arms Control

Durham

2018

Preprint

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Muons are the most penetrating radiographic probe that exists today. These elementary particles possess a unique combination of physical properties that allows them to pass through dense, heavily shielded objects that are opaque to typical photon/neutron probes, and emerge with useful radiographic information on the object's internal substructure. Interactions of cosmic rays in the Earth's upper atmosphere provide a constant, natural source of muons that can be used for passive interrogation, eliminating the need for artificial sources of radiation. These proceedings discuss specific applications of muon radiography in nuclear safeguards and arms control treaty verification. I. INTRODUCTIONHighly energetic radiation produced in astrophysical processes is constantly bombarding the Earth. These naturally occurring cosmic rays provide a window into the dynamics of distant events in our universe, and as such have been the subject of intense scrutiny. Among recent work, measurements have shown that the incident high-energy cosmic ray flux includes neutrinos [1], gamma rays [2, 3], positrons and electrons [4], and heavy nuclei [5,6]. These particles can have energies much higher than can produced in terrestrial accelerators: iron nuclei with energies above 10 5 GeV have been observed (see [7] for a review). When these heavy, energetic cosmic ray nuclei collide with nitrogen or oxygen nuclei that are present in the atmosphere, a short-lived phase of quark-gluon plasma is created, which immediately freezes out and produces hundreds of charged pions. Charged pions have a lifetime of 2.6×10 −8 s and have a nearly 100% branching ratio to decay into a neutrino and a muon.

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Section: Fuel Cask Verificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmic Ray Muon Radiography Applications in Safeguards and Arms Control

Durham

2018

Preprint

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“…Muons are a highly penetrating and passive probe that is capable of penetrating storage cask's shielding and interrogating the fuel assemblies inside. There have been explorations of various nuclear waste assessment scenarios via simulation [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], and a recent statistics-limited measurement proved that cosmic-ray muon scattering measurements are sensitive to removal of fuel assemblies from a sealed dry storage cask [28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verifying Spent Fuel Containers Before Deep Geological Storage with Cosmic Ray Muons

Poulson¹,

Durham²,

Bacon³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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International nuclear safeguards inspectors do not have a method to verify the contents of sealed storage casks containing spent reactor fuel. The heavy shielding that is used to limit radiation emission attenuates and scatters photons and neutrons emitted by the fuel, and thereby hinders inspection with these probes. This problem is especially pressing given the policy decisions of several nations to begin permanent disposal of spent fuel in deep geological repositories. Radiography with cosmic-ray muons provides a potential solution, as muons are able to penetrate the cask and fuel and provide information on the cask contents. Here we show in simulation that muon scattering radiography can be used to inspect the contents of sealed geological storage casks, and can discern between a variety of plausible diversion scenarios. This technique can be applied immediately prior to permanent interment in a geological repository, giving inspectors a final opportunity to verify State declarations of spent fuel disposal.

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“…There has been much work in simulation and on laboratory test objects to show that highly penetrating cosmic-ray muons are potentially useful for interrogating encapsulated nuclear waste [14,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. A previous measurement by our group showed that muon scattering is sensitive to the fuel content of a cask, but that data set only covered a small portion of a cask and had limited discriminatory power [33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verification of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Sealed Dry Storage Casks via Measurements of Cosmic-Ray Muon Scattering

et al. 2018

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Most of the plutonium in the world resides inside spent nuclear reactor fuel rods. This highlevel radioactive waste is commonly held in long-term storage within large, heavily shielded casks. Currently, international nuclear safeguards inspectors have no stand-alone method of verifying the amount of reactor fuel stored within a sealed cask. Here we demonstrate experimentally that measurements of the scattering angles of cosmic ray muons which pass through a storage cask can be used to determine if spent fuel assemblies are missing without opening the cask. This application of technology and methods commonly used in high-energy particle physics provides a potential solution to this long-standing problem in international nuclear safeguards.

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One-sided muon tomography - A portable method for imaging critical infrastructure with a single muon detector

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

Cosmic Ray Muon Radiography Applications in Safeguards and Arms Control

Cosmic Ray Muon Radiography Applications in Safeguards and Arms Control

Verifying Spent Fuel Containers Before Deep Geological Storage with Cosmic Ray Muons

Verification of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Sealed Dry Storage Casks via Measurements of Cosmic-Ray Muon Scattering

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