Search

Experimental results from a dataset collected with a full-scale muon tomograph for the inspection of cargo containers were studied in a single scattering scenario with a multiparametric analysis based on the method of the Point Of Closest Approach (Poca). To search for high-Z materials, a 4 $$\hbox {dm}^3$$ dm 3 Pb block was positioned inside the volume to be inspected, in order to quantitatively investigate the appearance of the Poca signal. Signal-to-noise ratio and significance of the Poca signal were investigated by means of mono-dimensional spectra of the Poca components, for different values of the scattering angle between the incoming and outgoing muon tracks and with different angle-dependent weights. A systematic scan of two-dimensional maps was also carried out, as a strategy to search for possible enhancements to the Poca signal. A comparison was also done between the results obtained from the two half-volumes, one containing the Pb block and one left empty, to take into account the response of the detector and some aspects of the Poca strategy.

NUMEN proposes an innovative technique to access the nuclear matrix elements entering the expression of the lifetime of the double beta decay by cross-section measurements of heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. Despite the fact that the two processes, namely neutrinoless double beta decay and DCE reactions, are triggered by the weak and strong interaction respectively, important analogies are suggested. The basic point is the coincidence of the initial and final state many-body wave functions in the two types of processes and the formal similarity of the transition operators. The main experimental tools for this project are the K800 Superconducting Cyclotron and MAGNEX spectrometer at the INFN-LNS laboratory. However, the tiny values of DCE cross-sections and the resolution requirements demand beam intensities much higher than those manageable with the present facility. The on-going upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities promoted by the POTLNS a project in this perspective is intimately connected to the NUMEN project. This paper describes the solutions proposed as a result of the R&D activity performed during the recent years. The goal is to develop suitable technologies allowing for the measurements of DCE cross-section under extremely high beam intensities. a PIR01_00005 — potenziamento dell’infrastruttura di ricerca Laboratori Nazionali del Sud per la produzione di fasci di ioni ad alta intensitá.

Background: Heavy-ion induced two-nucleon transfer reactions are powerful tools to reveal peculiar aspects of the atomic nucleus, such as pairing correlations, single-particle and collective degrees of freedom, and more. Also, these processes are in competition with the direct meson exchange in the double charge exchange reactions, which have recently attracted great interest due to their possible connection to neutrinoless double-beta decay. In this framework, the exploration of two-nucleon transfer reactions in the 20Ne+116Cd collision at energies above the Coulomb barrier is particularly relevant since the 116Cd nucleus is a candidate for the double-beta decay. Methods: We measured the excitation energy spectra and absolute cross sections for the two reactions using the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer to detect the ejectiles. We performed direct coupled reaction channels and sequential distorted wave Born approximation calculations using the double folding S\~ao Paulo potential to model the initial and final state interactions. The spectroscopic amplitudes for two- and singleparticle transitions were derived by different nuclear structure approaches: microscopic large-scale shell model, interacting boson model-2 and quasiparticle random phase approximation. Results: The calculations are able to reproduce the experimental cross sections for both two-neutron and twoproton transfer reactions. The role of couplings with the inelastic channels are found to be important in the two-proton transfer case. A competition between the direct and the sequential process is found in the reaction mechanism. For the two-proton transfer case, the inclusion of the 1g7/2 and 2d5/2 orbitals in the model space is crucial.

An experimental investigation of cosmic muons has been carried out with the Muography of Etna Volcano (MEV) tracking telescope, installed at an altitude of about 3100 m a.s.l. in front of the North-East Etna crater. The analysis of a statistically significant data sample ($$\sim 10^7$$ events), taken during a period of approximately 2 months, has been carried out to investigate the angular distribution of cosmic muons originating both from the open sky side and from a large solid rock thickness (Etna side). Due to the geographical orientation of the MEV telescope, anisotropies caused by the East–West effect could also be observed, extracting the asymmetry factor in small steps of the zenithal angle.

In a recent paper, the authors discussed the feasibility study of an innovative technique based on the directionality of Cherenkov light produced in a transparent material to improve the signal to noise ratio in muon imaging applications. In particular, the method was proposed to help in the correct identification of incoming muons direction. After the first study by means of Monte Carlo simulations with Geant4, the first reduced scale prototype of such a detector was built and tested at the Department of Physics and Astronomy "E. Majorana" of the University of Catania (Italy). The characterization technique is based on muon tracking by means of the prototype in coincidence with two scintillating tiles. The results of this preliminary test confirm the validity of the technique and stressed the importance to enhance the Cherenkov photons production to get a signal well distinguishable with respect to sensors and electronic noise.

The NUMEN (NUclear Matrix Elements for Neutrinoless double beta decay) project was recently proposed with the aim to investigate the nuclear response to Double Charge Exchange reactions for all the isotopes explored by present and future studies of 0νββ decay. The expected level of radiation in the NUMEN experiment imposes severe limitations on the average lifetime of the electronic devices. During the experiments, it is expected that the electronic devices will be exposed to about 105 neutrons/cm2/s according to FLUKA simulations. This paper investigates the reliability of a System On Module (SOM) under neutron radiation. The tests were performed using thermal, epithermal, and fast neutrons produced by the Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares 4.5 MW Nuclear Research Reactor. The results show that the National Instruments SOM is robust to neutron radiation for the proposed applications in the NUMEN project.

At Mount Etna volcano, the focus point of persistent tectonic extension is represented by the Summit Craters. A muographic telescope has been installed at the base of the North-East Crater from August 2017 to October 2019, with the specific aim to find time related variations in the density of volcanic edifice. The results are significant, since the elaborated images show the opening and evolution of different tectonic elements; in 2017, a cavity was detected months before the collapse of the crater floor and in 2018 a set of underground fractures was identified, at the tip of which, in June 2019, a new eruptive vent started its explosive activity, still going on (February, 2020). Although this is the pilot experiment of the project, the results confirm that muography could be a turning point in the comprehension of the plumbing system of the volcano and a fundamental step forward to do mid-term (weeks/months) predictions of eruptions. We are confident that an increment in the number of telescopes could lead to the realization of a monitoring system, which would keep under control the evolution of the internal dynamic of the uppermost section of the feeding system of an active volcano such as Mount Etna.

Background: Double charge exchange (DCE) nuclear reactions have recently attracted much interest as tools to provide experimentally driven information about nuclear matrix elements of interest in the context of neutrinoless double-β decay. In this framework, a good description of the reaction mechanism and a complete knowledge of the initial and final-state interactions are mandatory. Presently, not enough is known about the details of the optical potentials and nuclear response to isospin operators for many of the projectile-target systems proposed for future DCE studies. Among these, the Ne20+Ge76 DCE reaction is particularly relevant due to its connection with Ge76 double-β decay. Purpose: We intend to characterize the initial-state interaction for the Ne20+Ge76 reactions at 306 MeV bombarding energy and determine the optical potential and the role of the couplings between elastic channel and inelastic transitions to the first low-lying excited states. Methods: We determine the experimental elastic and inelastic scattering cross-section angular distributions, compare the theoretical predictions by adopting different models of optical potentials with the experimental data, and evaluate the coupling effect through the comparison of the distorted-wave Born approximation calculations with the coupled channels ones. Results: Optical models fail to describe the elastic angular distribution above the grazing angle (≈9.4∘). A correction in the geometry to effectively account for deformation of the involved nuclear systems improves the agreement up to about 14∘. Coupled channels effects are crucial to obtain good agreement at large angles in the elastic scattering cross section. Conclusions: The analysis of elastic and inelastic scattering data turned out to be a powerful tool to explore the initial and final-state interactions in heavy-ion nuclear reactions at high transferred momenta.

An experimental investigation of multiple muon tracks detected by the MEV (Muography of Etna Volcano) cosmic ray telescope has been carried out during a commissioning phase of the project. The MEV telescope, which is based on three 1×1 m2 tracking planes segmented into scintillation strips with wavelength fibers and PMT readout, has been installed at an altitude of about 3100m a.s.l. in front of the North-East Etna crater since the summer of 2017. The main aim of this facility is to provide a detailed muography of the interior of the target object. An additional analysis of a first sample of data, taken during a period of approximately two months in 2017 has been undertaken to measure the abundance and topology of nearly horizontal multiple cosmic muons.

An updated overview of recent results on Heavy-Ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay is reported in the framework of the NUMEN project. The NUMEN idea is to study heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with the aim to get information on the nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay. Moreover, to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half- life of 0νββ decay, the knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is a crucial aspect. Uma visão geral atualizada dos resultados recentes sobre reações induzidas por íons pesados ​​de interesse para o decaimento beta duplo sem neutrinos é relatada na estrutura do projeto NUMEN. A ideia do NUMEN é estudar reações de Double Charge Exchange (DCE) induzidas por íons pesados ​​com o objetivo de obter informações sobre os elementos da matriz nuclear para o decaimento beta duplo sem neutrinos (0νββ). Além disso, para inferir as massas médias dos neutrinos a partir da possível medição da meia-vida do decaimento 0νββ, o conhecimento dos elementos da matriz nuclear é um aspecto crucial. 1308 012002

The MEV project is running for a long-term muography measurement at the North-East crater of the Etna Volcano, after the successful conclusion of the test phase in July 2017. Two sets of data were already acquired during 2017, during the last months of the summer, and 2018. Data analysis is currently ongoing in order to extract a two-dimensional density map of the target from the measured muon flux. But before, a major improvement on data pre-processing was required. It regards in particular the algorithm for event reconstruction and filtering and the introduction of a method to extract the telescope efficiency from data themselves. The main steps of this pre-analysis and their application to the test data set is described in this paper.

International audience; New experimental measurements of charge state distributions produced by a 20Ne10+ beam at 15 MeV/u colliding on various thin solid targets are presented. The useof the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer enabled measurements of the 8+ charge state down to fractions of a few 10−5. The use of different post-stripper foils locateddownstream of the main target is explored, showing that low Z materials are particularly effective to shift the charge state distributions towards fully strippedconditions. The dependence on the foil thickness is also studied and discussed.

International audience; NUMEN aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of the cross sections of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. First evidence about the possibility to get quantitative information about NME from experiments is found for the (^18O,^18Ne) and (^20Ne,^20O) reactions. Moreover, to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0νββ decay, the knowledge of the NME is a crucial aspect. The key tools for this project are the high resolution Superconducting Cyclotron beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer at INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud in Catania (Italy). The measured cross sections are extremely low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen in order to increase the experimental yield of at least two orders of magnitude, thus making feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest.

The MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer is nowadays used in the experimental measurements of rare quasi-elastic reactions between heavy ions at intermediate energy within the NUMEN project. The small cross sections involved in such processes under the large yields due to competitive reaction channels have motivated an accurate control of the background sources. In such view, the not ideal particle identification could introduce spurious contributions which have been identified and evaluated in the present analysis.

The Muon Portal Project was born as a joint initiative between Italian research and industrial partners, aimed at the construction of a real-size working detector prototype to inspect the content of traveling containers by means of secondary cosmic-ray muon radiation and recognize potentially dangerous hidden materials. The tomographic image is obtained by reconstructing the incoming and outgoing muon trajectories when crossing the inspected volume, employing two tracker planes located above and below the container under inspection. In this paper, the design and development of the front-end electronics of the Muon Portal detector is presented, with particular emphasis being devoted to the photo-sensor devices detecting the scintillation light and to the read-out circuitry which is in charge of processing and digitizing the analog pulse signals. In addition, the remote control system, mechanical housing, and thermal cooling system of all structural blocks of the Muon Portal tracker are also discussed, demonstrating the effectiveness and functionality of the adopted design.

The MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer is used in the experimental measurements of Double Charge Exchange and Multi-Nucleon Transfer reactions induced by heavy ions within the NUMEN project. These processes are characterized by small cross sections under a large background due to other reaction channels. Therefore an accurate control of the signal to background ratio is mandatory. In this article, the determination of the MAGNEX spectrometer background contribution on cross section measurements is presented by applying a suitable analysis to quantify the limits of the adopted particle identification technique. The method is discussed considering the 116Cd(20Ne, 20O)116Sn Double Charge Exchange reaction data, however it can be applied to any other reaction channel of interest.

The Pierre Auger Observatory is undergoing a major upgrade named AugerPrime with the primary aim to add sensitivity to the mass-composition discrimination of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Two different photomultipliers will be added to each water-Cherenkov station of the surface detector of Observatory. To achieve the scientific goals of AugerPrime these photomultipliers have to ensure a linear response to input-light in a wide range. This paper describes a system developed for the validation of AugerPrime-photomultipliers.

International audience; The article describes the main achievements of the NUMEN project together with an updated and detailed overview of the related R&D activities and theoretical developments. NUMEN proposes an innovative technique to access the nuclear matrix elements entering the expression of the lifetime of the double beta decay by cross section measurements of heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. Despite the fact that the two processes, namely neutrinoless double beta decay and DCE reactions, are triggered by the weak and strong interaction respectively, important analogies are suggested. The basic point is the coincidence of the initial and final state many-body wave functions in the two types of processes and the formal similarity of the transition operators. First experimental results obtained at the INFN-LNS laboratory for the$^{40}$Ca($^{18}$O,$^{18}$Ne)$^{40}$Ar reaction at 270MeV give an encouraging indication on the capability of the proposed technique to access relevant quantitative information. The main experimental tools for this project are the K800 Superconducting Cyclotron and MAGNEX spectrometer. The former is used for the acceleration of the required high resolution and low emittance heavy-ion beams and the latter is the large acceptance magnetic spectrometer for the detection of the ejectiles. The use of the high-order trajectory reconstruction technique, implemented in MAGNEX, allows to reach the experimental resolution and sensitivity required for the accurate measurement of the DCE cross sections at forward angles. However, the tiny values of such cross sections and the resolution requirements demand beam intensities much larger than those manageable with the present facility. The on-going upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities in this perspective is part of the NUMEN project and will be discussed in the article.

International audience; The NUMEN project proposes to measure the absolute cross sections of heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with the final goal to get information on the nuclear matrix elements involved in the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0νββ decay and also to compare experiments on different isotopes. DCE reactions and 0νββ decay present some similarities, the initial and final-state wave functions are the same and the transition operators are similar. Many challenges have to be faced for the experimental measurements of DCE reactions induced by heavy ions, since they are characterized by very low cross sections.

The MEV project aims at developing a muon telescope expressly designed for the muography of Etna Volcano. In particular, one of the active craters in the summit area of the volcano would be a suitable target for this experiment. A muon tracking telescope with high imaging resolution was built and tested during 2017. The telescope is a tracker based on extruded scintillating bars with WLS fibres and featuring an innovative read-out architecture. It is composed of three XY planes with a sensitive area of \SI{1}{m^2}; the angular resolution does not exceeds \SI{0.4}{\milli\steradian} and the total angular aperture is about $\pm$\SI{45}{\degree}. A special effort concerned the design of mechanics and electronics in order to meet the requirements of a detector capable to work in a hostile environment such as the top of a tall volcano, at a far distance from any facility. The test phase started in January 2017 and ended successfully at the end of July 2017. An extinct volcanic crater (the Monti Rossi, in the village of Nicolosi, about 15km from Catania) is the target of the measurement. The detector acquired data for about 120 days and the preliminary results are reported in this work.

The design of the front-end electronics for the new tracker of the MAGNEX Focal Plane Detector (FPD) for the NUMEN project is presented. The front-end is based on the VMM chip, developed for ATLAS experiment at CERN. The architecture of the front-end (FE) electronics is designed to be modular and scalable to the final detector. The segmented anode board is designed in order to take advantage of the unique performances of the VMM chip, allowing a digital reconstruction of the track at high event rate. This anode board is connected to front-end by mean of Micro Coax Cable Assembly and does not make use of vacuum connectors. The front-end boards will be placed in air, facilitating in this way the heat dissipation and the connection to the read-out (RO) electronics. An innovative anode read-out strategy allows the reduction of the total number of channels to about 1400 and the measurement of the track at different depth in the detector with 750 µm spatial resolution.

International audience; A study of different post-stripper materials for the (20Ne, 20O) double charge exchange and (20Ne, 20F) single charge exchange reactions at zero degrees using the MAGNEX spectrometer at 22 and 15 AMeV is presented. All these experiments belongs to the experimental campaign planned in the NUMEN project (NUclear Matrix Elements for Neutrinoless double beta decay).

International audience; The NUMEN project proposes to study heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with the final goal to get information on the nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 0νββ decay. DCE reactions and 0νββ decay present some similarities, the initial and final-state wave functions are the same and the transition operators are similar. The experimental measurements of DCE reactions induced by heavy ions present a number of challenging aspects, since they are characterized by very low cross sections.

The Muon Portal is a recently started Project aiming at the construction of a large area tracking detector that exploits the muon tomography technique to inspect the contents of traveling cargo containers. The detection planes will be made of plastic scintillator strips with embedded wavelength-shifting fibres. Special designed silicon photomultipliers will read the scintillation light transported by the fibres along the strips and a dedicated electronics will combine signals from different strips to reduce the overall number of channels, without loss of information. Different silicon photomultiplier prototypes, both with the p-on-n and n-on-p technologies, have been produced by STMicroelectronics during the last years. In this paper we present the main characteristics of the silicon photomultipliers designed for the Muon Portal Project and describe the setup and the procedure implemented for the characterization of these devices, giving some statistical results obtained from the test of a first batch of silicon photomultipliers.

International audience; The current work is a part of the NUMEN project, which aims to deduce the nuclear matrix elements (NME) of neutrinoless double beta decay by measuring the cross sections in heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. The particle identification for the competing transfer reaction channels has been studied for the 18O + 116Sn system at 270 MeV.

International audience; Within the NUMEN project, we present experimental issues and data reduction for the 116Cd(20Ne,20F)116In single charge exchange, 116Cd(20Ne,18O)118In two-proton transfer and 116Cd(20Ne,19F)117In one-proton transfer reactions at 15 AMeV incident energy.

The NUMEN project aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross sections. In particular, the (18O,18Ne) and (20Ne,20O) reactions are used as tools for β+β+ and β−β− decays, respectively. In the experiments, performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania, the beams are accelerated by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) and the reaction ejectiles are detected the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. The measured cross sections are challengingly low (a few nb), being the total reaction cross section much larger (a few b), thus a high sensitivity and a large rejection capability are demanded to the experimental set-up. This limits the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen in order to increase the experimental yield of at least two orders of magnitude, still keeping the high sensitivity of the present set-up, making it feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest. Frontiers technologies are going to be developed, to this purpose, for the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models are being developed in order to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.

The aim of the NUMEN project is to access the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME), involved in the half life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by measuring the cross sections of Heavy Ions (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with high accuracy. First evidence of the possibility to get quantitative information about NME from experiments is shown in the reaction 40Ca(18O,18Ne)40Ar at 270 MeV, performed with MAGNEX spectrometer using Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) beams at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania. Preliminary tests on 116Sn and 116Cd target are already performed. High beam intensity is the new frontiers for these studies.

A proof of principle proton Computed Tomography (pCT) apparatus, based on a silicon microstrip tracker and a YAG:Ce calorimeter, has been manufactured. Tests with a 175 MeV proton beam at The Svedberg Laboratory (TSL, Uppsala, Sweden) aiming at collecting data for reconstructing a tomographic image have been carried out. Algebraic iterative reconstruction methods, together with the most likely path formalism, have been used to obtain non-homogeneous phantom images to eventually extract density and spatial resolutions. The heavy computation load required by the algebraic algorithms has been approached fully exploiting the high calculation parallelism of Graphics Processing Units. The dose delivered to the phantom during the tomographic data-taking has been estimated as well as spatial and density resolutions dependence on dose. An upgraded pCT apparatus with an extended field-of-view able to reconstruct objects of the size of a human head, thus suitable to be used in pre-clinical tests, is now at an advanced construction stage. Using this new apparatus radiographies of an anthropomorphic phantom have been taken at the proton experimental beam line of the 'Trento Proton Therapy Center' (Trento, Italy).

Proton Computed Tomography (pCT) is a medical imaging method with a potential for increasing accuracy of treatment planning and patient positioning in hadron therapy. A pCT system based on a Silicon microstrip tracker and a YAG:Ce crystal calorimeter has been developed within the INFN Prima-RDH collaboration. The prototype has been tested with a 175 MeV proton beam at The Svedberg Laboratory (Uppsala, Sweden) with the aim to reconstruct and characterize a tomographic image. Algebraic iterative reconstruction methods (ART), together with the most likely path formalism, have been used to obtain tomographies of an inhomogeneous phantom to eventually extract density and spatial resolutions. These results will be presented and discussed together with an estimation of the average dose delivered to the phantom and the dependence of the image quality on the dose. Due to the heavy computation load required by the algebraic algorithms the reconstruction programs have been implemented to fully exploit the high calculation parallelism of Graphics Processing Units. An extended field of view pCT system is in an advanced construction stage. This apparatus will be able to reconstruct objects of the size of a human head making possible to characterize this pCT approach in a pre-clinical environment.

A prototype of proton Computed Tomography (pCT) system for hadron-therapy has been manufactured and tested in a 175 MeV proton beam with a non-homogeneous phantom designed to simulate high-contrast material. BI-SART reconstruction algorithms have been implemented with GPU parallelism, taking into account of most likely paths of protons in matter. Reconstructed tomography images with density resolutions r.m.s. down to ~1% and spatial resolutions

This paper describes an innovative beam diagnostic and monitoring system composed of a position sensitive detector and a residual range detector (RRD), based on scintillating optical fibers and on an innovative read-out strategy and reconstruction algorithm. The distinguishing feature of these detectors is the possibility to work in imaging conditions (i.e., a particle at a time up to one million particles per second) and in therapy conditions up to one billion particles per second. The combined use of the two detectors allows the particle radiography of an object. In therapy conditions, in particular, the system measures the position, the profiles, the energy and the fluence of the beam. The position detector consists of two identical overlying and orthogonal planes each of which consists of two layers of prealigned and juxtaposed scintillating fibers. The 500 ${\mu }\text{m}$ square section fibers are optically coupled to two silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays using a channel reduction system patented by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. The RRD consists of 60 parallel layers of the same fibers used in the position detector each of which is optically coupled to an SiPM array by wavelength shifting fibers. After being fully characterized at CATANA proton therapy center, the performance of the prototypes was tested at Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications, Italy, proton irradiation facility in June 2016.

Cosmic ray tomography is a technique which exploits the multiple Coulomb scattering of highly penetrating cosmic ray-produced muons to perform non-destructive inspection of high-Z materials without the use of artificial radiation. A muon tomography detection system can be used as a portal monitor at border crossing points for detecting illegal targeted objects. The Muon Portal Project is a joint initiative between Italian research and industrial partners, aimed at the construction of a real size detector prototype (6×3×7 m 3 ) for the inspection of cargo containers by the muon scattering technique. The detector consists of four XY tracking planes, two placed above and two below the container to be inspected. After a research and development phase, which led to the choice and test of the individual components, the construction and installation of the detection modules is almost completed. In this paper the present status of the Project is reported, focusing on the design and construction phase, as well as on the preliminary results obtained with the first detection planes.

Muography is an expanding technique for internal structure investigation of large volume object, such as pyramids, volcanoes and also underground cavities. It is based on the attenuation of muon flux through the target in a way similar to the attenuation of X-ray flux through the human body for standard radiography. Muon imaging have to face with high background level, especially compared with the tiny near horizontal muon flux. In this paper the authors propose an innovative technique based on the measurement of Cherenkov radiation by Silicon photo-multipliers arrays to be integrated in a standard telescope for muography applications. Its feasibility study was accomplished by means of Geant4 simulations for the measurement of the directionality of cosmic-ray muons. This technique could be particularly useful for the suppression of background noise due to back-scattered particles whose incoming direction is likely to be wrongly reconstructed. The results obtained during the validation study of the technique principle confirm the ability to distinguish the arrival direction of muons with an efficiency higher than 98% above 1 GeV. In addition, a preliminary study on the tracking performance of the presented technique was introduced.

This paper describes the design and characterization of a charged particle imaging system composed of a position sensitive detector and residual range detector. The position detector consists of two identical overlying and orthogonal planes each of which consists of two layers of pre-aligned and juxtaposed scintillating fibres. The 500 μm square section fibres are optically coupled to two Silicon Photomultiplier arrays using a channel reduction system patented by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. The residual range detector consists of sixty parallel layers of the same fibres used in the position detector each of which is optically coupled to a Silicon Photomultiplier array by wavelength shifting fibres. The sensitive area of the two detectors is 9 × 9 cm2. Characterising the position sensitive and the residual range detectors to reconstruct the radiography, is fundamental to validating the detectors’ designs. The proton radiography of a calibrated target in imaging conditions is presented. The spatial resolution of the position sensitive detector is about 150 μm and the range resolution is about 170 μm. The performance of the prototypes were tested at CATANA proton therapy facility (Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, INFN, Catania) with energy up to 58 MeV and rate of about 10 6 particles per second. The comparison between the simulations and measurements confirms the validity of this system.

This paper describes an innovative beam diagnostic and monitoring system composed of a position sensitive detector and a residual range detector, based on scintillating optical fiber and on an innovative read-out strategy and reconstruction algorithm. The position sensitive detector consists of four layers of pre-aligned and juxtaposed scintillating fibres arranged to form two identical overlying and orthogonal planes. The 500 μm square section fibres are optically coupled to two Silicon Photomultiplier arrays using a channel reduction system patented by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. The residual range detector is a stack of sixty parallel layers of the same fibres used in the position detector, each of which is optically coupled to a channel of Silicon Photomultiplier array by wavelength shifting fibres. The sensitive area of the two detectors is 9 × 9 cm2. After being fully characterized at CATANA proton therapy facility, the performance of the prototypes was tested during last year also at TIFPA proton irradiation facility. The unique feature of these detectors is the possibility to work in imaging conditions (e.g. a particle at a time up to 106 particles per second) and in therapy conditions up to 109 particles per second. The combined use of the two detectors, in imaging conditions, as an example of application, allows the particle radiography of an object. In therapy conditions, in particular, the system measures the position, the profiles, the energy and the fluence of the beam.

The main task of the read-out electronics for the new NUMEN focal plane detector (FPD) is the real-time data collection from the front-end ASICs and the high bandwidth transmission to data acquisition, in addition to the slow control of the front-end electronics and the synchronization of the whole detector. The read-out electronics architecture, designed to be modular and expandable to the final size of the detectors, is based on System On Module (SOM). This very versatile device couples high performance FPGA to powerful processor architecture and allows a graphical approach to the programming and interfacing. A detailed description of the architecture and the specifications of the read-out electronics are presented.

A preliminary study of an alternative solution for the optical detection and tracking of the ions in the MAGNEX focal plane detector for the NUMEN project is presented. The tracks of the ions are sampled by means of the light that they produce through a scintillating gas, which is collected by arrays of Silicon Photo Multiplier suitably arranged. A complete Geant4 simulation is under development in order to correlate detector geometry, characteristics of the gas and light collection efficiency. Fast timing performance could be achieved through a completely digital (on-off) read-out system of the light sensors and a position reconstruction algorithm.

Neutrinoless double beta decay (0v\b{eta}\b{eta}) is considered the best potential resource to access the absolute neutrino mass scale. Moreover, if observed, it will signal that neutrinos are their own anti-particles (Majorana particles). Presently, this physics case is one of the most important research "beyond Standard Model" and might guide the way towards a Grand Unified Theory of fundamental interactions. Since the 0v\b{eta}\b{eta} decay process involves nuclei, its analysis necessarily implies nuclear structure issues. In the NURE project, supported by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC), nuclear reactions of double charge-exchange (DCE) are used as a tool to extract information on the 0v\b{eta}\b{eta} Nuclear Matrix Elements. In DCE reactions and \b{eta}\b{eta} decay indeed the initial and final nuclear states are the same and the transition operators have similar structure. Thus the measurement of the DCE absolute cross-sections can give crucial information on \b{eta}\b{eta} matrix elements. In a wider view, the NUMEN international collaboration plans a major upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities in the next years in order to increase the experimental production of nuclei of at least two orders of magnitude, thus making feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest as candidates for 0v\b{eta}\b{eta}.

This paper describes a method for the measurement of gain and linearity of photomultipliers (PMTs). Gain and linearity are two fundamental parameters to use properly a PMT in several physics experiments. In the developed system light is laser generated and adressed to the PMT through a set of optical fibers. The data acquisition system consists in a commercial 16 channel digitizer coupled to a custom front-end board. With the chosen digitizer the system is scalable to test up to 16 PMTs, with the aid of a light distribution system and a multi-channel version of the front-end board. Data analysis is performed by a custom acquisition software. A 1.5» Hamamatsu PMT is used to validate the system.

The Muon Portal Project [1] is a joint initiative between research and industrial partners, aimed at the construction of a real size detector protoype (6×3×7 m3) for the inspection of containers by the muon scattering technique, devised to search for hidden high-Z fissile materials and provide a full 3D tomography of the interior of the container in a scanning time of the order of minutes. The muon tracking detector is based on a set of 48 detection modules (size 1 m × 3 m), each built with 100 extruded scintillator strips, so as to provide four X-Y detection planes, two placed above and two below the container to be inspected. Two wavelength shifting (WLS) fibres embedded in each strip convey the emitted photons to Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) which act as photosensors. After a research and development phase, which led to the choice and test of the individual components, the construction of the full size detector has already started. The paper describes the results of the mass characterization of the photosensors and the construction and test measurements of the first detection modules of the Project.

In the NUMEN Project it is proposed an innovative technique to access the nuclear matrix elements entering in the expression of the life-time of the neutrinoless double beta decay, using relevant cross sections of double charge exchange reactions. A key aspect is the use of MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer, for the detection of the ejectiles, and of the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) K800 Superconducting Cyclotron (CS), for the acceleration of the required high resolution and low emittance heavy-ion beams.

The performances of the OFFSET3 tracker (Optical Fiber Folded Scintillating Extended Tracker) are presented. It exploits a novel system for particle tracking, designed to achieve real-time particle imaging and tracking, large detection areas, and a high spatial resolution especially suitable for applications in medical diagnostics. The tracker is composed by two $288 \times 288~\hbox{mm}^2$ FOV position detectors stacked by 10 cm, made by 500 micron square scintillating fiber ribbons for both directions. The track position information is extracted in real-time in an innovative way, using a reduced number of readout channels, by means of which it is possible to obtain the large detection area with moderate cost and complexity. The architecture has been patented by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). The performances of the tracker were investigated by beta sources, cosmic rays, 60 MeV-250 MeV proton and 400 MeV/A carbon clinical beams.

The mixed-signal PRIMA-chip has been developed for sensitive-position silicon detector in proton imaging application. The chip is based upon the binary readout architecture which, providing fully parallel signal processing, is a good solution for high intensity radiation application. It includes 32-front-end channels with a charge preamplifier, a shaper and a comparator. In order to adjust the comparator thresholds, each channel contains a 8-bit DAC, programmed using an I2C like interface. The PRIMA-chip has been fabricated using the AMS 0.35 μm standard CMOS process and its performances have been tested coupling it to the detectors used in the tracker assembled for the pCT (proton Computed Tomography) apparatus.

The Muon Portal Project goal is the design and construction of a working detector prototype in scale 1∶1, to inspect the content of travelling containers by means of the secondary cosmic-ray muon radiation and recognize high-Z hidden materials (U, Pu or other fissile samples). The radiographic image is obtained by reconstructing the input and output trajectories of each muon and consequently the scattering angle, exploiting two trackers placed above and below the container. The scan is performed without adding any external radiation, in a reasonable time (a few minutes) and with a good spatial and angular resolution. The detector consists of 8 planes segmented in 6 identical modules. Each module is made of scintillating strips with two WaveLength Shifting fibers (WLS) inside, coupled to Silicon photomultipliers. The customized read-out electronics employs trading programmable boards. Thanks to a smart read-out system, the number of output channels is reduced by a factor 10. The signals from the front-end modules are sent to the read-out boards, in order to convert the analog signal to a digital signal, by a comparison to a threshold. The data are pre-analyzed and stored into a data acquisition PC. Actually, an intense measurement and simulation campaign is in progress to characterize carefully the detector components. The first detection modules (1 × 3 m2) is now under construction. The detector architecture with a particular attention to the used electronics and the main preliminary results will be presented.

The Muon Portal Project aims at the construction of a large volume detector to inspect the content of travelling containers for the identification of high-Z hidden materials (U, Pu or other fissile samples), exploiting the secondary cosmic-ray muon radiation. An image of these materials is achieved reconstructing the deviations of the muons from their original trajectories inside the detector volume, by means of two particle trackers, placed one below and one above the container. The scan is performed without adding any external radiation, in a few minutes and with a high spatial and angular resolution. The detector consists of 4800 scintillating strips with two wavelength shifting (WLS) fibers inside each strip, coupled to Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). A smart strategy for the read out system allows a considerable reduction of the number of the read-out channels. Actually, an intense measurement campaign is in progress to carefully characterize any single component of the detector. A prototype of one of the 48 detection modules (1 × 3 m2) is actually under construction. This paper presents the detector architecture and the preliminary results.