Feasibility Study of a New Cherenkov Detector for Improving Volcano Muography

Abstract

Muography is an expanding technique for internal structure investigation of large volume object, such as pyramids, volcanoes and also underground cavities. It is based on the attenuation of muon flux through the target in a way similar to the attenuation of X-ray flux through the human body for standard radiography. Muon imaging have to face with high background level, especially compared with the tiny near horizontal muon flux. In this paper the authors propose an innovative technique based on the measurement of Cherenkov radiation by Silicon photo-multipliers arrays to be integrated in a standard telescope for muography applications. Its feasibility study was accomplished by means of Geant4 simulations for the measurement of the directionality of cosmic-ray muons. This technique could be particularly useful for the suppression of background noise due to back-scattered particles whose incoming direction is likely to be wrongly reconstructed. The results obtained during the validation study of the technique principle confirm the ability to distinguish the arrival direction of muons with an efficiency higher than 98% above 1 GeV. In addition, a preliminary study on the tracking performance of the presented technique was introduced.