Muon radiography applied to volcanoes imaging: the MURAVES experiment at Mt. Vesuvius

Abstract: Muon radiography is a technique based on the measurement of absorption profiles of
muons as they pass through matter. This measurement allows to obtain an image of the inner
structure of large volume objects and is suitable to be applied in several fields, such as volcanology,
archaeology and civil engeneering. One of the main applications concerns the study of volcanic
structures; indeed it is possible to use this technique to measure the mass distribution inside
the edifice of a volcano providing useful information to better understand the possible eruption
mechanisms. The MURAVES (MUon RAdiography of VESuvius) project aims to the study of the
summital cone of Mt. Vesuvius near Naples in Italy, one of the most dangerous active volcanoes
in the world. The MURAVES apparatus is a modular, robust muon hodoscope system with a low
power consumption, optimized to be used in inhospitable environments like the surroundings of
volcanoes. The complete detection system is an array of identical tracking modules, each with an
area of 1 m2 , based on the use of plasic scintillators. The technologies, the status and the data
analysis strategy of the experiment will be presented in this paper.

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