Contact
Name
Vishal Kumar

Position
Postdoc

Email
vishal.kumar@uclouvain.be

Address
Centre for Cosmology, Particle Physics and Phenomenology - CP3
Université catholique de Louvain
2, Chemin du Cyclotron - Box L7.01.05
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium

Phone
+32 10 473197

Office
E.166

UCL member card
http://www.uclouvain.be/vishal.kumar
Projects
Research directions:
Detector commissioning, operation and data processing
Research and development of new detectors

Experiments and collaborations:
MURAVES

Active projects
Imaging with cosmic-ray muons
Marwa Al Moussawi, Samip Basnet, Abhishek Chauhan, Eduardo Cortina Gil, Pavel Demin, Khalil El Achi, Andrea Giammanco, Sumaira Ikram, Vishal Kumar, Maxime Lagrange, Nicolas Szilasi, Ayman Youssef, Zahraa Zaher

The general goal of this project is to develop muon-based radiography or tomography (“muography”), an innovative multidisciplinary approach to study large-scale natural or man-made structures, establishing a strong synergy between particle physics and other disciplines, such as geology and archaeology.
Muography is an imaging technique that relies on the measurement of the absorption of muons produced by the interactions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere.
Applications span from geophysics (the study of the interior of mountains and the remote quasi-online monitoring of active volcanoes) to archaeology and mining.

We are using the local facilities at CP3 for the development of high-resolution portable detectors based on Resistive Plate Chambers.

We also participate to the MURAVES collaboration through simulations (including the coordination of the Monte Carlo group), data-analysis developments (an example of the latter is the implementation and in-situ calibration of time-of-flight capabilities), and development of a new database.

We are part of the H2020-RIA project SilentBorder, which aims at developing new muon scanners at border controls. Our role in this project is to develop a parametric simulation and a ML-based detector optimization procedure.

We are also part of the H2020-MSCA-RISE network INTENSE where we coordinate the Muography work package, which brings together particle physicists, geophysicists, archaeologists, civil engineers and private companies for the development and exploitation of this imaging method.

External collaborators: UGent; Kyushu University; INTENSE Research & Innovation Staff Exchange network (Japan, Switzerland, Italy, France, Hungary); SilentBorder network (Estonia, Germany, Finland, Turkey, Italy, UK); MURAVES Collaboration including INFN, INGV, universities of Florence and Federico II Naples, UGent, VUB.
Publications in IRMP
All my publications on Inspire

Number of publications as IRMP member: 3

2023

IRMP-CP3-23-73: Performance testing of gas-tight portable RPC for muography applications
V. Kumar, S. Basnet, E. Cortina Gil, P. Demin, R. M. I. D. Gamage, A. Giammanco, R. Karnam, M. Moussawi, A. Samalan, M. Tytgat, A. Youssef

[Abstract] [PDF]
Proceedings of the Innovative Particle and Radiation Detectors 2023 (IPRD23) workshop.
Submitted to JINST.
Contribution to proceedings. December 13.
IRMP-CP3-23-62: Small-area Portable Resistive Plate Chambers for Muography
Samalan, Amrutha and others

[Abstract] [PDF]
Proceedings of the Muographers'23 workshop, submitted for peer review to the Journal of Advanced Instrumentation for Science.
Contribution to proceedings. November 21.
IRMP-CP3-23-50: Muons for cultural heritage
Moussawi, Marwa and Giammanco, Andrea and Kumar, Vishal and Lagrange, Maxime

[Abstract] [PDF] [Local file] [Full text]
Published reference: PoS(Muon4Future2023)029.
Contribution to proceedings. September 15.