Geant4 Simulation of Muon Absorption in Concrete Layers

Abstract

Muography requires a detailed understanding of the absorption of muons in the material situated between the muon source and the detector. A large-statistics (>3 billion event) Geant4 simulation was run to simulate the absorption of muons in different thicknesses of concrete layers and to determine the effect of the material on the energies of muons that were not absorbed. The Geant4 simulation included a simple detector placed directly behind the absorbing material. A Geant4 simulation was also run for the same detector for alpha sources with no absorbing material and the results of this simulation were compared to the signals from the physical detector built in the laboratory and measured using standard alpha sources. The large-statistics simulations using muons of different energies were compared to the predictions of muon absorption from existing literature. The results of the simulations were in good agreement with both the measured signals from the laboratory as well as the predictions from the literature and the general method is found to be well-suited for studies used for muography involving material layers of uniform thickness.