Portable Resistive Plate Chambers for Muography in confined environments

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and testing of portable Resistive Plate Chamber detectors for muography, aiming to enable imaging in confined environments like tunnels or mines with improved design and performance.

Contribution

It introduces new portable RPC-based muon detectors designed for confined spaces, with prototype testing and performance validation across different laboratories.

Findings

Successful cross-validation of prototypes in joint data collection

Development of improved detector prototypes with advanced technical layouts

Performance studies indicating suitability for muography in confined environments

Abstract

Muography (or muon radiography) is an imaging technique that relies on the use of cosmogenic muons as a free and safe radiation source. It can be applied in various fields such as archaeology, civil engineering, geology, nuclear reactor monitoring, nuclear waste characterization, underground surveys, etc. In such applications, sometimes deploying muon detectors is challenging due to logistics, e.g. in a narrow underground tunnel or mine. Therefore, we are developing muon detectors whose design goals include portability, robustness, autonomy, versatility, and safety. Our portable muon detectors (or ``muoscopes'') are based on Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC), planar detectors that use ionization in a thin gas gap to detect cosmic muons. Prototype RPCs of active area $16 \times 16~cm^2$ and $28 \times 28~cm^2$ were built in our laboratories at Louvain-la-Neuve (UCLouvain) and Ghent (UGent) to test and compare various design options. Benefiting from the experience gained in building and operating these prototypes, we are proceeding towards the development of improved prototypes with more advanced technical layout and readiness. In this paper we provide the status of our performance studies, including the cross-validation of the two types of prototypes in a joint data taking, and an outline of the direction ahead.