Preliminary analysis of imaging performance in cosmic-ray muon radiography

Cosmic-ray muon radiography is an advanced technology to non-destructively detect objects which may contain high-Z materials. Based on the imaging system in Tsinghua University, we concern mainly about the muon radiography for small size objects within reasonable muon collection time. In this paper, we propose the imaging performance analysis standards of muon radiography, which include the spatial resolution, the material distinguishing ability and the muon collection time. Beyond this, we design 8 models for the evaluation, especially the “TUCCI” (Tsinghua University Cube for Cargo Inspection) model. We employ PoCA (the Point of Closest Approach) and MLSD (Maximum Likelihood Scattering and Displacement) algorithms to reconstruct these models in simulation, and get the conclusion that within 1 day imaging time which is totally acceptable in practice, the smallest line-pair we can obtain is 5 mm, and we can distinguish common materials in the air or under certain background.