Research on Cosmic Ray Muon Scattering Tomography Simulation and Imaging Algorithm

The feasibility of rapid nuclear material inspection with cosmic ray muon scattering tomography system based on Micromegas detector was verified, and essential parameters of the laboratory cosmic ray muon tomography system prototype were estimated. A simulation program based on Geant4 simulation toolkit was developed to simulate the physical processes and propagation tracks of cosmic ray muons, and responses of Micromegas detector to cosmic ray muons. Based on the simulation data, two main cosmic ray muon scattering tomography algorithms were implemented and improved. According to the simulation and imaging results, the tomography system of 1 m×1 m size is able to inspect nuclear materials shielded by heavy elements within 10 min. The tomography system of 10 cm×10 cm size is estimated to have a trigger rate of 0.16 s^-1. To obtain a clearer imaging result from the 10 cm×10 cm tomography system, the detector position resolution needs to reach 300 μm, and the actual measurement time needs to be at least 20 h with the detector gain of 1 000.