Non-intrusive Monitoring of Sealed Microreactor Cores Using Physics-Informed Muon Scattering Tomography With Momentum Measurements
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arXiv
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866911490168061952 |
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| author | Ughade, Reshma Chatzidakis, Stylianos |
| author_facet | Ughade, Reshma Chatzidakis, Stylianos |
| contents | Next-generation microreactors enable remote deployment and semi-autonomous operation, but compact, sealed, heterogeneous cores limit conventional safeguard approaches that rely on access and bulk accountancy. Limited inspection access and complex internal geometry reduce sensitivity to localized anomalies such as missing fuel. Here we demonstrate missing-fuel detection in microreactor scale geometries using muon scattering tomography under realistic cosmic-ray conditions. We introduce $μ$TRec, a physics-informed framework that reconstructs event-level curved muon trajectories by combining a Gaussian multiple Coulomb scattering model with Bayesian updating, then maps scattering density through voxel wise M-values for core integrity verification. We evaluate a representative hexagonal core containing 61 fuel flakes with embedded control drums and shutdown rods, using both idealized 5 GeV muons and zenith-angle-dependent 0-60 GeV cosmic-ray spectra. A single missing fuel flake is detected with $3\times 10^{6}$ muons at 50 mm voxel resolution. Incorporating per-muon momentum further increases detectability by up to 149.85% for laser-driven sources and 105.11% for cosmic-ray sources relative to momentum-agnostic reconstruction. The approach remains robust under practical detector limits, with only an 8.88% reduction in detectability for 10 mm spatial resolution and 10% energy resolution. Compared with PoCA, $μ$TRec delivers 326.13% to 392.14% higher detectability at equal muon counts, enabling faster defect identification. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_05712 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Non-intrusive Monitoring of Sealed Microreactor Cores Using Physics-Informed Muon Scattering Tomography With Momentum Measurements Ughade, Reshma Chatzidakis, Stylianos Applied Physics Computational Physics Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability Instrumentation and Detectors Next-generation microreactors enable remote deployment and semi-autonomous operation, but compact, sealed, heterogeneous cores limit conventional safeguard approaches that rely on access and bulk accountancy. Limited inspection access and complex internal geometry reduce sensitivity to localized anomalies such as missing fuel. Here we demonstrate missing-fuel detection in microreactor scale geometries using muon scattering tomography under realistic cosmic-ray conditions. We introduce $μ$TRec, a physics-informed framework that reconstructs event-level curved muon trajectories by combining a Gaussian multiple Coulomb scattering model with Bayesian updating, then maps scattering density through voxel wise M-values for core integrity verification. We evaluate a representative hexagonal core containing 61 fuel flakes with embedded control drums and shutdown rods, using both idealized 5 GeV muons and zenith-angle-dependent 0-60 GeV cosmic-ray spectra. A single missing fuel flake is detected with $3\times 10^{6}$ muons at 50 mm voxel resolution. Incorporating per-muon momentum further increases detectability by up to 149.85% for laser-driven sources and 105.11% for cosmic-ray sources relative to momentum-agnostic reconstruction. The approach remains robust under practical detector limits, with only an 8.88% reduction in detectability for 10 mm spatial resolution and 10% energy resolution. Compared with PoCA, $μ$TRec delivers 326.13% to 392.14% higher detectability at equal muon counts, enabling faster defect identification. |
| title | Non-intrusive Monitoring of Sealed Microreactor Cores Using Physics-Informed Muon Scattering Tomography With Momentum Measurements |
| topic | Applied Physics Computational Physics Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability Instrumentation and Detectors |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05712 |