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Dipartimento di Fisica - A501
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Seminar
Speakers
Details
Muon tomography uses naturally occurring cosmic ray muons to probe the internal structure of objects near the surface of the earth. For example it has been utilized to "x-ray" pyramids, volcanoes, nuclear reactors. A research agreement between Occidental College and KoBold Metals has allowed a small team at Occidental to join in this exciting field. Our goal is to develop detectors which would be of use to KoBold Metals in their search for minerals for the battery revolution. To that end we have developed and deployed 3 different technologies in the last 3 years. I will briefly describe 2 of them, a gas based detector, called KoDark, designed to be deployed in a borehole and a large scintillator based detector, called KoNova, designed to be deployed in a mine. I will conclude with a new idea for a detector to extend muography underground to depths of 1 km. Deployed at scale such a detector would utilize 1000s of square meters of surface detectors to detect incoming air showers and inexpensive, non-directional borehole detectors in coincidence. The measurement of muon direction and depth provide the basic parameters needed for muography. As a proof of principle, we have deployed an array of 10 surface scintillators in conjunction with 4 borehole scintillators at Occidental College. All surface detectors use a unique GPS system to measure time with an accuracy of a few ns across the array. Each unit communicates wirelessly for deployment at scale. Initial results and expectations for the future will be discussed.