Further progress for a fast scanning of nuclear emulsions with Large Angle Scanning System

Abstract

The LASSO (Large Angle Scanning System for OPERA) is a scanning system designed in the framework of the OPERA experiment as a result of several R&Ds aimed to improve the performance of the European Scanning System (ESS) by increasing the scanning speed, the angular acceptance and the efficiency in microtrack reconstruction. The novel Continuous Motion (CM) scanning approach allows to double the ESS nominal speed without any changes in the hardware set-up. The LASSO modular design makes the system easily adaptable to new hardware. The novel microtrack reconstruction algorithm has been developed to be efficient in both standard Stop&Go (SG) and CM modes, performing a number of corrections during the processing like corrections for vibrations, optical distortions, field of view curvature. As an intermediate step it reconstructs silver grains positions inside emulsion layer to make a transition from 2D images to real 3D traces of a charged particle. This allows the algorithm to have no internal limits on the slope of microtracks being equally efficient on all angles. The LASSO has been used for about one year for mass production scanning of emulsion films of OPERA, Muon Radiography and also of films employed to study nuclear fragmentation of ion beams used in medical physics. More than 50000 cm2 of the emulsion surface have been analyzed during this period.