Amazing stuff!
"... After processing the data, a team at the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) in Romania has now released images: a shadow of a pile of lead blocks perched between the wall and the van.
For the first time, the researchers showed the images were created almost entirely by muons, high energy particles produced by the laser ...
Such on-demand muon beams could eventually be used to reveal objects that light cannot penetrate, from subsurface archaeological structures to concealed nuclear materials shipped across borders. ...
Muons are elementary particles similar to electrons but about 200 times heavier. Their high energies and masses allow them to penetrate thick and dense objects. As they pass through matter, they are absorbed and deflected in ways that can reveal the material’s density and structure. ..."
From the abstract:
"Artificially generated muon beams, with tunable parameters, are highly valuable in imaging objects that are opaque to any other scanning technique. Lower-energy muon beams are currently produced at accelerator facilities, while higher energies have only recently been observed as a result of the interaction of laser-wakefield-accelerated electrons and solid targets.
This work focuses on using muography imaging detectors to measure the profile of a muon beam generated via the Bethe-Heitler process and to perform muon imaging in an experimental setup extending up to 42 meters from the muon source. By comparing the data with Monte Carlo simulations, we confirm that the measured beam profile and object imaging are consistent with artificially produced muons of energy of a few GeV. To our knowledge, this represents the first demonstration of imaging dominated by an artificial, laser-driven muon beam."
Imaging with GeV muons produced via laser-wakefield-accelerated electrons (preprint, open access)
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