Publications

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Linear mathematical models were applied to binary-discrimination tasks relevant to arms control verification measurements in which a host party wishes to convince a monitoring party that an item is or is not treaty accountable. These models process data in list-mode format and can compensate for the presence of variability in the source, such as uncertain object orientation and location. The Hotelling observer applies an optimal set of weights to binned detector data, yielding a test statistic that is thresholded to make a decision. The channelized Hotelling observer applies a channelizing matrix to the vectorized data, resulting in a lower dimensional vector available to the monitor to make decisions. We demonstrate how incorporating additional terms in this channelizing-matrix optimization offers benefits for treaty verification. We present two methods to increase shared information and trust between the host and monitor. The first method penalizes individual channel performance in order to maximize the information available to the monitor while maintaining optimal performance. Second, we present a method that penalizes predefined sensitive information while maintaining the capability to discriminate between binary choices. Data used in this study was generated using Monte Carlo simulations for fission neutrons, accomplished with the GEANT4 toolkit. Custom models for plutonium inspection objects were measured in simulation by a radiation imaging system. Model performance was evaluated and presented using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.

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Dual plane neutron scatter cameras have shown promise for localizing fast neutron sources. The condition that a neutron must scatter in both planes of the camera produces low counting efficiencies. Counting efficiency can be improved using an alternative design that uses a single, optically segmented volume of scintillation material. Using Geant4, we simulated pulses from neutron elastic scatter events at different locations throughout an EJ-204 scintillator bar. We used nonlinear regression on low light pulses to determine the position along the bar where the scatter event occurred.

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This paper reports a series of measurements that characterize the directional dependence of the scintillation response of crystalline anthracene to incident DT neutrons, DD neutrons, 137Cs gamma rays, and, for the first time, cosmic ray muons. The neutron measurements give the amplitude and pulse shape dependence on the proton recoil direction over one hemisphere of the crystal, confirming and extending previous results in the literature. In similar measurements using incident gamma rays, no directional effect is evident, and any anisotropy with respect to the electron recoil direction is constrained to have a magnitude of less than a tenth of that present in the proton recoil events. Cosmic muons are measured at two directions, and no anisotropy is observed. This set of observations indicates that high dE/dx is necessary for an anisotropy to be present for a given type of scintillation event, which in turn could be used to discriminate among different hypotheses for the underlying causes of the anisotropy, which are not well understood.

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Observer models were developed to process data in list-mode format in order to perform binary discrimination tasks for use in an arms-control-treaty context. Data used in this study was generated using GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations for photons using custom models of plutonium inspection objects and a radiation imaging system. Observer model performance was evaluated and presented using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The ideal observer was studied under both signal-known-exactly conditions and in the presence of unknowns such as object orientation and absolute count-rate variability; when these additional sources of randomness were present, their incorporation into the observer yielded superior performance.

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We present a neutron detector system based on time-encoded imaging, and demonstrate its applicability toward the spatial mapping of special nuclear material. We demonstrate that two-dimensional fast-neutron imaging with 2° resolution at 2 m stand-off is feasible with only two instrumented detectors.

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The neutron scatter camera (NSC), an imaging spectrometer for fission energy neutrons, is an established and proven detector for nuclear security applications such as weak source detection of special nuclear material (SNM), arms control treaty verification, and emergency response. Relative to competing technologies such as coded aperture imaging, time-encoded imaging, neutron time projection chamber, and various thermal neutron imagers, the NSC provides excellent event-by-event directional information for signal/background discrimination, reasonable imaging resolution, and good energy resolution. Its primary drawback is very low detection efficiency due to the requirement for neutron elastic scatters in two detector cells. We will develop a singlevolume double-scatter neutron imager, in which both neutron scatters can occur in the same large active volume. If successful, the efficiency will be dramatically increased over the current NSC cell-based geometry. If the detection efficiency approaches that of e.g. coded aperture imaging, the other inherent advantages of double-scatter imaging would make it the most attractive fast neutron detector for a wide range of security applications.

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