Complementary non-destructive detection of nuclear materials with passive neutron and gamma-ray detectors, and a large-volume muon tomography system

Abstract

Abstract Experimental demonstrations are reported of the complementarity of passive gamma-ray spectroscopy, passive neutron counting, and passive muon scattering tomography, in the simultaneous detection of shielded nuclear material. The demonstrations were applied to a number of experimental configurations that emulate various scenarios that may be encountered in the context of nuclear safeguards, or the security of nuclear facilities. In each case, the experimental analysts were blind to the contents of each configuration as they attempted to deduce the presence or absence of nuclear materials using data collected simultaneously from the three detection techniques. Analysis of data collection times was at first restricted to 10 minutes, and then to 2 hours, both with nuclear material (if present), and without nuclear material (as background from the shielded arrangement). The results of these experiments show how these techniques complement each other in the detection of shielded nuclear material.