Atmospheric muography for imaging and monitoring tropic cyclones.

Large-scale solid bodies on Earth such as volcanoes and man-made pyramids have been visualized with solid earth muography, and the recently invented technique, acqueous muography, has already demonstrated its capability to visualize ocean tides and tsunami. In this work, atmospheric muography, a technique to visualize and monitor the vertical profile of tropic cyclones (TCs) is presented for the first time. The density distribution and time-dependent behavior of several TCs which had approached Kagoshima, Japan, has been investigated with muography. The resultant time-sequential images captured their warm cores, and their movements were consistent with the TC trails and barometric pressure variations observed at meteorological stations. By combining multidirectional muographic images with barometric data, we anticipate that muography will become a useful tool to monitor the three-dimensional density distribution of a targeted mesoscale convective system.

Periodic sea-level oscillation in Tokyo Bay detected with the Tokyo-Bay seafloor hyper-kilometric submarine deep detector (TS-HKMSDD).

Meteorological-tsunami-like (or meteotsunami-like) periodic oscillation was muographically detected with the Tokyo-Bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector (TS-HKMSDD) deployed in the underwater highway called the Trans-Tokyo Bay Expressway or Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (TBAL). It was detected right after the arrival of the 2021 Typhoon-16 that passed through the region 400 km south of the bay. The measured oscillation period and decay time were respectively 3 h and 10 h. These measurements were found to be consistent with previous tide gauge measurements. Meteotsunamis are known to take place in bays and lakes, and the temporal and spatial characteristics of meteotsunamis are similar to seismic tsunamis. However, their generation and propagation mechanisms are not well understood. The current result indicates that a combination of muography and trans-bay or trans-lake underwater tunnels will offer an additional tool to measure meteotsunamis at locations where tide gauges are unavailable.

First results of undersea muography with the Tokyo-Bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector.

Tidal measurements are of great significance since they may provide us with essential data to apply towards protection of coastal communities and sea traffic. Currently, tide gauge stations and laser altimetry are commonly used for these measurements. On the other hand, muography sensors can be located underneath the seafloor inside an undersea tunnel where electric and telecommunication infrastructures are more readily available. In this work, the world's first under-seafloor particle detector array called the Tokyo-bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector (TS-HKMSDD) was deployed underneath the Tokyo-Bay seafloor for conducting submarine muography. The resultant 80-day consecutive time-sequential muographic data were converted to the tidal levels based on the parameters determined from the first-day astronomical tide height (ATH) data. The standard deviation between ATH and muographic results for the rest of a 79-day measurement period was 12.85 cm. We anticipate that if the length of the TS-HKMSDD is extended from 100 m to a full-scale as large as 9.6 km to provide continuous tidal information along the tunnel, this muography application will become an established standard, demonstrating its effectiveness as practical tide monitor for this heavy traffic waterway in Tokyo and in other important sea traffic areas worldwide.

Development of radiodetection systems towards miniaturised quality control of PET and SPECT radiopharmaceuticals.

The ability to detect radiation in microfluidic devices is important for the on-chip analysis of radiopharmaceuticals, but previously reported systems have largely suffered from various limitations including cost, complexity of fabrication, and insufficient sensitivity and/or speed. Here, we present the use of sensitive, low cost, small-sized, commercially available silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) for the detection of radioactivity inside microfluidic channels fabricated from a range of conventional microfluidic chip substrates. We demonstrate the effects of chip material and thickness on the detection of the positron-emitting isotope, [(18)F]fluoride, and find that, while the SiPMs are light sensors, they are able to detect radiation even through opaque chip materials via direct positron and gamma (γ) ray interaction. Finally, we employed the SiPM platform for analysis of the PET (positron emission tomography) radiotracers 2-[(18)F]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose ([(18)F]FDG) and [(68)Ga]gallium-citrate, and highlight the ability to detect the γ ray emitting SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) radiotracer, [(99m)Tc]pertechnetate.