A Feaibility Study of 3D Cosmic-ray Muon Tomography with a Portable Muography Detector

Abstract

The Maximum Likelihood - Expectation Maximization (ML-EM) method was applied to 3D image reconstruction of cosmic-ray muon tomography. The feasibility was examined by using Monte Carlo simulation for a simple configuration where two lead blocks were placed at a different height from a muography detector. The 2D projection of the average thickness of the blocks as a function of the muon direction was simulated for multiple detection positions. The 3D image of the density profile was reconstructed by applying the ML-EM method to the simulated projections. It was found that the image reproduces reasonably well the position of the two blocks. The effect of the limited number of detection positions and the number of iteration in the ML-EM method on the image reconstruction was investigated in detail.