![]() Heading up the research project is DARPA program manager Dr. “Our goal is to develop a new, terrestrial muon source that doesn’t require large accelerators and allows us to create directional beams of muons at relevant energies” - Mark Wrobel, DARPA MuS2 Program Manager “But making muons requires such high-energy particles that production is limited to large physics research facilities such as the United States’ Fermilab national particle accelerator in Illinois and the European CERN accelerator in Switzerland.” At high energy, muons can travel easily through dozens to hundreds of meters of water, solid rock, or soil.” However, none of those sources can see through thick walls of concrete or deep layers of rock, such as those used in the construction of deep underground military bases or naturally formed tunnels.Īccording to the DARPA, “Muons are similar to electrons but about 200 times heavier. “Making muons requires such high-energy particles that production is limited to large physics research facilities” - DARPA MuS2 programĬurrently gamma rays, X-rays, neutrons, protons, and electrons are already in use for medical diagnostics, cargo scanning, and aircraft testing. “If successful, a transportable muon source could enable imaging through concrete walls several meters thick or locating chambers & tunnels hundreds of meters underground” - DARPA MuS2 Program If successful, the technologies developed would allow the US military to “image through concrete walls several meters thick, map the core of a volcano from the outside, or peer deep underground to locate chambers and tunnels.” The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is organizing its Muons for Science & Security ( MuS2) research program to create a compact source for generating these deeply penetrating subatomic particles. MuS2 will lay the groundwork needed to examine the feasibility of developing compact and transportable muon sources.DARPA is putting together a research program that would allow the Pentagon to see through thick concrete walls and deep underground chambers using beams of subatomic particles called muons. "Enabling this program is high-peak-power laser technology that has been steadily advancing and can potentially create the conditions for muon production in a compact form factor. "Our goal is to develop a new, terrestrial muon source that doesn't require large accelerators and allows us to create directional beams of muons at relevant energies, from tens to hundreds of giga-electronvolts (GeV)-to either image or characterize materials," he said in a press release. Such huge accelerators are not practical for military purposes, and while it is possible to harness muons created naturally via cosmic rays, it's a slow process that can take months to produce meaningful results.Īccording to Mark Wrobel, program manager for DARPA's MuS2 muon research program, lasers could provide the answer. Fermilab accelerator or the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. Only two such sources are known: cosmic rays, which produce muons in Earth's upper atmosphere when they collide with atmospheric particles and particle accelerators like the U.S. ![]() ![]() The problem is that since muons are high-energy particles they require high-energy sources. At high energy, they can easily travel through hundreds of yards of solid rock. Muons are subatomic particles that are similar to electrons but around 200 times heavier. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This is where high-energy particles known as muons come in, according to the U.S. Subatomic particles called muons can be used to 'see' through thick solid objects. A stock image shows an illustration of an atom. ![]()
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