With her picture on a dime...

I just registered for the Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference in Halifax (Oct. 21^st through the 25^th). This will be my first trip to Canada's east coast, and I'm really looking forward to it! It's been my goal since I've been back to get somewhere out that way sometime, and sooner than later is better :). I have been up and down much of the US east coast (Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachussets, and Maine), but never in Canada. I will be presenting a talk entitled "Using Cosmic Ray Muon Tomography to Detect Concealed High-Z Materials" based on the academic research and engineering work I've done since January this year at Carleton University. I'm nominally paying my own way, but there is murbling that at least most of the conference registration cost will be reimbursed by Carleton after the fact (if not my transportation to and from Halifax). The conference fee ($350) is pretty "all inclusive": accomodation at the swank Lord Nelson Hotel for 4 nights, breakfasts, lunches, transportation to/from the pub crawl Friday, a harbour cruise Saturday evening ($15 extra), a banquet dinner on Sunday. I think I just need to cover dinner for 3 nights and the cost of booze ;).

The abstract that I submitted for the talk is:

It is becoming ever more important to monitor the flow of goods and people as a deterrent against state, criminal, or ideological organizations that may wish to wage war or cause serious disruption through the use of “asymmetric weapons” systems. While it can be argued that conventional weapons pose the greatest and most likely risk, and that nations need to protect against all forms of weapons smuggling, governments have a special obligation to prevent the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons against their populations, infrastructure, services, and legitimate foreign interests. There are mitigation strategies that can be used to minimize the impact of a successful attack with chemical, biological, or radiological weapons; however, the damage that would be inflicted should a nuclear device be detonated in a populated area would be devastating beyond measure to both the fabric and spirit of any country, its operation, and its people. Radiation detectors, and active imaging with x-rays or gamma rays, provide a defence against unsophisticated smuggling attempts; however, these measures can be defeated through simple shielding or “cluttering” techniques. Passive Muon Tomography (PMT) systems are a technology that specifically addresses these limitations by being able to use the pervasive and weakly interacting, and thus highly penetrating, cosmic ray muon background to “look through” vehicles and containers. Statistical analysis of individual muon trajectories and momenta, as they undergo multiple Coulomb scattering in a heterogeneous target within a PMT system, allows the creation of a three dimensional tomographic map of the distribution of atomic nuclei within the target that can be used to detect the presence of high-Z nuclear materials or shielding that might mask the radioactive signatures of other, low-Z, materials of concern. Carleton University’s Physics Department is developing a proof-of-concept employing large drift chambers to determine that specific technology’s suitability and spacial resolution capabilities for use in PMT systems.

I will need to do slides, but I'm pretty familiar with the material. I also have been thinking about revising the research paper I did in the winter term (3rd year honours research project in Integrated Sciences... done in my first year, ugh!) and submitting it to an undergraduate physics magazine for publication as an article (yes, there is a Canadian Undergraduate Physics Journal).

Here are a couple of pictures of the system as it stands (three more chambers are being built). This is a working cosmic ray telescope. What's interesting is that it's a project that would be within the abilities of a home hobbyist to design and build. I'm thinking about maybe trying to get the Physics Society at Carleton to start on a project to design and build a smaller system and then maybe publish the plans in Make magazine or something :).

This is the overall setup, with the telescope on the right, the scintillator electronics and high voltage (about 12kV) supplies in the middle, and the data acquisition system on the left (I was responsible for the scintillator electronics and the data acquisition system and programming):



( More pics and stuff under the cut... )

And that's how I spent my summer... ;).