C. Grupen – Handbook of Particle Detection and Imaging (2012)

Автор: C. Grupen
Название книги: Handbook of Particle Detection and Imaging
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Физика
Страницы: 1247
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The handbook centers on detection techniques in the field of particle physics, medical imaging and related subjects. It is structured into three parts. The first one is dealing with basic ideas of particle detectors, followed by applications of these devices in high energy physics and other fields. In the last part the large field of medical imaging using similar detection techniques is described. The different chapters of the book are written by world experts in their field. Clear instructions on the detection techniques and principles in terms of relevant operation parameters for scientists and graduate students are given.Detailed tables and diagrams will make this a very useful handbook for the application of these techniques in many different fields like physics, medicine, biology and other areas of natural science

Sophisticated instrumentations and imaging devices have become powerful tools in themodern
world of technology. Advances in electronics, fast data processing, image reconstruction, and
pattern recognition, just to name a few, have enabled the development of very elaborate investigation
techniques that are now used in many different fields of science and many domains of
applications. A large number of technological advances were originally developed in particle
physics, but then spread to astrophysics, medicine, biology, materials science, art, archaeology,
and many other application domains.
Thefield of imaging has known incredible advances in the recent decades.With atomic force
microscopes or scanning force microscopes, very-high-resolution images can now be obtained.
Resolutions on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than  times better than the
optical diffraction limit have been reached.With the scanning tunnelingmicroscope, atoms can
even be dragged along and positioned to build atomic-scale artificial structures. Increasingly
higher resolutions require more and more storage space. A Triumph calculator from the fifties
in the last century using ferrite cores had a storage capacity of  bits!The LargeHadronCollider
(LHC) at CERN will produce roughly  petabytes ( million gigabytes) of data annually.The
discovery of a giant magnetoresistance by the  Nobel laureates Peter Grünberg and Albert
Fert enabled a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives, and so this technique allows massive
number crunching and can cope with huge data files.
Also the image quality and image reconstruction accuracy have substantially increased.
For a decent photo one needs more than  million photons in the optical range. In observational
astronomy the sensitivity of instruments has improved over a period of  years –
from Galileo’s telescope to the Hubble Space Telescope – by a factor of  millions. For the
discovery of an X-ray source in our galaxy, approximately  photons are sufficient. Using
the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique, the discovery of a gamma-ray source can be
claimed if more than about  photons – with little background – come from the same point in
the sky.These advances also come about because high-resolution pixel detectors are available.
In the s the best charge-sensitive amplifiers used for the readout of semiconductor counters
had a noise level equivalent to that of  electrons. Nowadays one can unambiguously count
single electrons, because the noise level has decreased by a factor of .
Imaging also plays a major role in medical diagnosis. The old X-ray technique has been
improved and has been made more sensitive by using image intensifiers. Antiparticles, discovered
in cosmic rays in the thirties of the last century are nowroutinely used in positron emission
tomography (PET) for cancer diagnosis and therapymonitoring. Also γ rays are used in gamma
cameras, scintigraphy, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and PET, with
all sorts of diagnostic indications, including suspicion of heart or brain disease.The operation
of Compton telescopes, known from astroparticle physics experiments, has now found its way
into medical diagnosis as Compton cameras, although image reconstruction from Compton
cameras remains a major challenge.
Beyond diagnostic imaging, nuclear techniques have also entered the domain of medical
therapy.The strong ionization of charged particles at the end of their range (Bragg peak) has
initiated new methods in cancer treatment (particle therapy) with substantial advantages over therapy with cobalt- γ rays. Apart from γ rays and charged particles, also neutrons have
important applications in therapy.
On the detector side, a lot of progress has also been achieved. Early detectors, like the
Wilson cloud chamber, provided lots of details about charged particles and their interactions.
One drawback was a poor time resolution or repetition time. If you can only record one event
per minute, such a detector is not suited for accelerator experiments. In the LHC, protons collide
every  nanoseconds, resulting in a possible event rate of  million per second. Modern
detectors cannot only measure the spatial coordinates, the energy and momentum of a particle,
but they can also determine the identity of the particle. Particle identification is essential for
the unambiguous characterization of interactions or new particle production.These techniques
are also important in many other fields measuring electromagnetic radiation as γ rays, X rays,
terahertz radiation, ultraviolett (UV), or infrared (IR) photons up to microwave photons.
This handbook centers on detection techniques in the field of particle physics,medical imaging,
and related subjects. It is structured into four parts.The first two parts deal with basic ideas
about particle detectors, like interactions of radiation and particles with matter and specific
types of detectors. In the third part applications of these devices in high energy physics and
related fields are presented. Finally, the last part concerns the ever-growing field of medical
imaging using similar detection techniques.The different chapters of the book are written by
well-known experts in their field. Clear instructions on the detection techniques and principles
in terms of relevant operation parameters for scientists and graduate students are given.
Detailed tables, diagrams, and figures will make this a very useful handbook for the application
of these techniques inmany different fields like physics, medicine, biology, other areas of natural
science, and applications inmetrology and technology.Also, it is our hope that such a broad presentation
of particle detectors and radiation-based imaging can be a source of cross-fertilization
between different fields of applications.