High energy muon induced radioactive nuclides in nickel plate and its use for 2-D muon-beam image profile

Target materials were exposed to a muon beam with an energy of 160 GeV/c at the COMPASS experiment line in CERN-SPS to measure the production cross-sections for muon-induced radionuclides. A muon imager containing four nickel plates, each measuring 100 mm×100 mm, exposed to the IP plate successfully detected the muon beam image during an irradiation period of 33 days. The contrasting density rate of the nickel plate was (5.2±0.7)×10-9 PSL/muon per one-day exposure to IP. The image measured 122 mm and 174 mm in horizontal and vertical lengths, respectively, in relation to the surface of the base, indicating that 50±6% of the muon beam flux is confined to an area of 18% of the whole muon beam. The number of muons estimated from the PSL value in the total beam image area (0.81±0.1)×1013 was comparable to the total muon counts of the ion-chamber at the M2 beam line in the CERN-SPS. The production cross-sections of Cr-51, Mn-54, Co-56, Co-57, and Co-58 in nickel were 0.19±0.08, 0.34±0.06, 0.5±0.05, 3.44±0.07, 0.4±0.03 in the unit of mb, respectively, reducing muon associated particles effects. They are approximately 10 times smaller than that a proceeding study by Heisinger et al.