Transfer learning empowers material Z classification with muon tomography

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wang, Haochen, Zhang, Zhao, Yu, Pei, Bao, Yuxin, Zhai, Jiajia, Xu, Yu, Deng, Li, Xiao, Sa, Zhang, Xueheng, Yu, Yuhong, He, Weibo, Chen, Liangwen, Zhang, Yu, Yang, Lei, Sun, Zhiyu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Wang, Haochen
Zhang, Zhao
Yu, Pei
Bao, Yuxin
Zhai, Jiajia
Xu, Yu
Deng, Li
Xiao, Sa
Zhang, Xueheng
Yu, Yuhong
He, Weibo
Chen, Liangwen
Zhang, Yu
Yang, Lei
Sun, Zhiyu
author_facet Wang, Haochen
Zhang, Zhao
Yu, Pei
Bao, Yuxin
Zhai, Jiajia
Xu, Yu
Deng, Li
Xiao, Sa
Zhang, Xueheng
Yu, Yuhong
He, Weibo
Chen, Liangwen
Zhang, Yu
Yang, Lei
Sun, Zhiyu
contents Cosmic-ray muon sources exhibit distinct scattering angle distributions when interacting with materials of different atomic numbers (Z values), facilitating the identification of various Z-class materials, particularly those radioactive high-Z nuclear elements. Most of the traditional identification methods are based on complex muon event reconstruction and trajectory fitting processes. Supervised machine learning methods offer some improvement but rely heavily on prior knowledge of target materials, significantly limiting their practical applicability in detecting concealed materials. For the first time, transfer learning is introduced into the field of muon tomography in this work. We propose two lightweight neural network models for fine-tuning and adversarial transfer learning, utilizing muon tomography data of bare materials to predict the Z-class of coated materials. By employing the inverse cumulative distribution function method, more accurate scattering angle distributions could be obtained from limited data, leading to an improvement by nearly 4\% in prediction accuracy compared with the traditional random sampling based training. When applied to coated materials with limited labeled or even unlabeled muon tomography data, the proposed method achieves an overall prediction accuracy exceeding 96\%, with high-Z materials reaching nearly 99\%. Simulation results indicate that transfer learning improves prediction accuracy by approximately 10\% compared to direct prediction without transfer. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of transfer learning in overcoming the physical challenges associated with limited labeled/unlabeled data, highlights the promising potential of transfer learning in the field of muon tomography.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_12305
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Transfer learning empowers material Z classification with muon tomography
Wang, Haochen
Zhang, Zhao
Yu, Pei
Bao, Yuxin
Zhai, Jiajia
Xu, Yu
Deng, Li
Xiao, Sa
Zhang, Xueheng
Yu, Yuhong
He, Weibo
Chen, Liangwen
Zhang, Yu
Yang, Lei
Sun, Zhiyu
Instrumentation and Detectors
High Energy Physics - Experiment
Cosmic-ray muon sources exhibit distinct scattering angle distributions when interacting with materials of different atomic numbers (Z values), facilitating the identification of various Z-class materials, particularly those radioactive high-Z nuclear elements. Most of the traditional identification methods are based on complex muon event reconstruction and trajectory fitting processes. Supervised machine learning methods offer some improvement but rely heavily on prior knowledge of target materials, significantly limiting their practical applicability in detecting concealed materials. For the first time, transfer learning is introduced into the field of muon tomography in this work. We propose two lightweight neural network models for fine-tuning and adversarial transfer learning, utilizing muon tomography data of bare materials to predict the Z-class of coated materials. By employing the inverse cumulative distribution function method, more accurate scattering angle distributions could be obtained from limited data, leading to an improvement by nearly 4\% in prediction accuracy compared with the traditional random sampling based training. When applied to coated materials with limited labeled or even unlabeled muon tomography data, the proposed method achieves an overall prediction accuracy exceeding 96\%, with high-Z materials reaching nearly 99\%. Simulation results indicate that transfer learning improves prediction accuracy by approximately 10\% compared to direct prediction without transfer. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of transfer learning in overcoming the physical challenges associated with limited labeled/unlabeled data, highlights the promising potential of transfer learning in the field of muon tomography.
title Transfer learning empowers material Z classification with muon tomography
topic Instrumentation and Detectors
High Energy Physics - Experiment
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12305