Laser-driven muon production for materials inspection and imaging

Abstract

Muons can be implemented for imaging applications where conventional radiation fails involving very thick or high-Z materials due to their ability to be scattered and attenuated very little over long distances. Traditionally muon radiography utilizes cosmic ray muons as a radiation source, however this results in very large and unpredictable acquisition times due to low muon flux and the inability to control their production. A solution for this low flux problem is to produce muons using PW scale lasers, inducing the Bethe-Heitler muon pair production process from laser wakefield electron beams incident on high-Z targets. This thesis outlines and details laser-driven muon production through simulation results using FLUKA and experimental results acquired at Extreme Light Infrastructure - Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP). Using FLUKA, muon pair production from high-Z targets is characterised in terms of target thickness and primary electron beam parameters, along with the design of a muon beamline focused on noise attenuation and subsequent application of this beamline to 10PW laser facility electron beam parameters. Experimental simulations were also carried out for the laser driven muon production performed at ELI-NP showing beamline design for noise attenuation, and expected muon counts and energies on a Timepix3 detector. The Timepix3 was accurately modelled and characteristic particle signal is detailed providing likelihood ratios for specific track characteristics. Experimental results are shown for the ELI-NP laser driven muon experiment detailing laser wakefield electron beam charge and energies along with a first in field 2𝜎 confidence detection of muon signal using Timepix3 detectors.

Date of Award	Jul 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Sponsors	Defence, Sciences & Technology Laboratory (MOD)
Supervisor	Gianluca Sarri (Supervisor) & Marco Borghesi (Supervisor)