Muon portable imager for counter-terrorism—MuPIC

Abstract

We present recently developed portable muon tracking detectors based on robust and modern technology for imaging applications. Muon Portable Imager for Counter-terrorism (MuPIC) exploits triangular plastic scintillator bars with wavelength-shifting fiber optics along with silicon photomultipliers to improve detector performance over conventional photomultiplier technology. The muon detection efficiency was measured to be 85%, and the average position resolution is 2.52 mm for a given detector configuration. Improvements to light collection efficiency through double-sided readout of the scintillator bars decouple the detector performance from position dependence, in contrast with previous muon tomography detectors developed in Canada. The compact design of the MuPIC detector hardware directly enables field deployment with minimal complexity. We demonstrate the flexibility of the MuPIC detector through both scattering and attenuation tomography experiments.