Tomographic Muon Imaging of the Great Pyramid of Giza

• Main Authors: Bross, Alan D, Dukes, E. C, Ehrlich, Ralf, Fernandez, Eric, Dukes, Sophie, Gobashy, Mohamed, Jamieson, Ishbel, La Riviere, Patrick J, Liu, Mira, Marouard, Gregory, Moeller, Nadine, Pla-Dalmau, Anna, Rubinov, Paul, Shohoud, Omar, Vargas, Phillip, Welch, Tabitha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 16-02-2022
• Subjects: Physics - Accelerator Physics; Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors; Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2202.08184

The pyramids of the Giza plateau have fascinated visitors since ancient times
and are the last of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world still standing. It
has been half a century since Luiz Alvarez and his team used cosmic-ray muon
imaging to look for hidden chambers in Khafres Pyramid. Advances in
instrumentation for High-Energy Physics (HEP) allowed a new survey,
ScanPyramids, to make important new discoveries at the Great Pyramid (Khufu)
utilizing the same basic technique that the Alvarez team used, but now with
modern instrumentation. The Exploring the Great Pyramid Mission plans to field
a very-large muon telescope system that will be transformational with respect
to the field of cosmic-ray muon imaging. We plan to field a telescope system
that has upwards of 100 times the sensitivity of the equipment that has
recently been used at the Great Pyramid, will image muons from nearly all
angles and will, for the first time, produce a true tomographic image of such a
large structure.