A gamma-ray imager for arms control
Ascertaining the number of warheads on a missile-delivery systems by a remote, nonvisual inspection may be desirable in some arms-control verification scenarios. A gamma-ray imaging system (GRIS) has been developed to inspect for nuclear warheads by imaging the highly penetrating gamma-radiation emitted by radioactive materials integral to warheads. Such an image may be used to obtain the missile loadout. The authors describe the GRIS's operating principles and capabilities, present data, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such a system for arms control. They also present field results where GRIS was used on an emplaced Peacekeeper missile. Improvements to GRIS in light of the field trial results are presented.<<ETX>>
A SIMPLE GAMMA RAY DIRECTION FINDER
One of the simplest gamma spectrometry systems that could provide the directional information of incident gamma rays has been developed. The system consists of a 3″ × 3″ &phgr; NaI (Tl) scintillator, a specially shaped lead shield, and software. The measurement was carried out four times by rotating the shield position along the axis of the detector to obtain four energy spectra at one location. Four count rates at a special region of interest in the spectra were fed into the software for determining incident directions of gamma rays. Experiments using 137Cs and 54Mn at the same time demonstrated that the direction of gamma rays from several dominant sources from any direction could be identified with good precision by the total measurement time of 10 to 20 min. The system could be used to identify the locations of missing radioactive sources or the cause of elevation in ambient radiation dose rates. The disadvantages of the present system are follows: (1) It requires four time measurements at one location; (2) It can provide one pseudo incident angle when several contamination sources exist around the detector system and emit the same energy gamma rays; and (3) It can scan only one plane geometry that is usually chosen as the horizontal plane.
GRASP - Gamma Ray Astronomy with Spectroscopy and Positioning
The GRASP telescope, which is currently under assessment by the European Space Agency as a future space mission, is designed to generate high resolution images of the gamma-ray sky with high sensitivity and fine spectral resolution. The telescope employs a coded aperture mask and the capability to function as a Spectral Imager is achieved by the incorporation of an array of discrete aermanium solid state detectors within the matrix of a larger position sensitive CsI(Tl) gamma-ray detection plane.