Abstract
Positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) has developed into a flexible applied nuclear technique for measuring the trajectory of a single tracer particle moving in a system of granular or liquid flow or attached to a moving rigid body. The tracer particle is labelled with a radionuclide (such as [Formula: see text]F or [Formula: see text]Ga) that decays via positron emission. The nearly collinear 511 keV annihilation gamma rays are detected in coincidence by a modified positron emission tomography (PET) camera, which defines their line of response (LOR). The chronologically measured LORs may then be used to triangulate the position of the moving tracer particle. We present an introduction to PEPT and illustrate the quality of measurements possible with a high-resolution PET scanner. Data are presented and discussed with reference to a few fundamental measurement scenarios and a framework for the metrology of PEPT is introduced.
Highlights
Positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) has been developed into a useful technique[1,2,3,4,5,6] for measuring the trajectory of a single tracer particle moving within a system of granular or liquid flow or attached to a moving rigid body
The tracer is labeled with a radionuclide that decays via positron emission, and the nearly collinear 511 keV annihilation gamma rays are detected in coincidence by a modified positron emission tomography (PET) camera, defining their line of response (LOR)
We present an introduction to PEPT and illustrate the quality of PEPT measurements possible with a high-resolution and high-efficiency PET scanner
Summary
Positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) has been developed into a useful technique[1,2,3,4,5,6] for measuring the trajectory of a single tracer particle moving within a system of granular or liquid flow or attached to a moving rigid body. The tracer is labeled with a radionuclide that decays via positron emission, and the nearly collinear 511 keV annihilation gamma rays are detected in coincidence by a modified positron emission tomography (PET) camera, defining their line of response (LOR). The chronologically measured LORs may be used to triangulate the position of the moving tracer. Only two LORs are necessary, but the recording of non-useful LORs from the detection of gamma rays after undergoing Compton scattering between creation and detection, and the coincident detection of two gamma rays unassociated with the same annihilation event, means that a larger number of measured LORs is required. Since hundreds of thousands of coincidence events can be processed by a PET camera every second, the tracking of particles moving as fast as 10 m/s may be realized. Velocities and accelerations are determined from measured position–time coordinates
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