Single-Shot High-Energy Muon and Particle Radiography with a Multi-GeV Laser-Wakefield-Accelerator-Driven Source
Abstract
We report the first demonstration of single-shot particle radiography using a 1-10 GeV laser-wakefield-generated beam of muons, pions, and neutrons. The test objects were imaged ~15 m from the beam source, through dense lead shielding followed by the walls of a building and a truck. The muon content of the beam was directly confirmed using large volume scintillator-based detectors, which recorded particle decay events with timing delays consistent with the muon lifetime. Simulations confirm that the high energy component of the beam transmitted through the test object is nearly entirely composed of muons, directly showing their highly penetrative nature, with a single-shot fluence equivalent to >8 hours of integration of cosmic ray muons near the horizon. Our work establishes single-shot high-energy particle radiography with a laser-wakefield-accelerator-driven source.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.12984,
title = {Single-Shot High-Energy Muon and Particle Radiography with a Multi-GeV Laser-Wakefield-Accelerator-Driven Source},
author = {Kaixin Zhu and G. Jackson Williams and Roberto Versaci and Ela Rockafellow and Anna Cimmino and Jaron E. Shrock and Reed Hollinger and Gabriele M. Grittani and Jiří Šišma and Ari Sloss and Nikola Durand and Nischal Tripathi and Jay Jablonski and James King and Gerardo Palma and Zach Rautio and Bryan Sullivan and Shoujun Wang and Frederica Sorkin and Sina Zahedpour and Ping Zhang and Bo Miao and Andrew Yandow and Mayank Gupta and Scott W. Hancock and Scott C. Wilks and Vincent Tang and David Warner and Jorge J. Rocca and John Harton and Howard M. Milchberg and Brendan A. Reagan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.12984},
year = {2026}
}