Optimal detection of a particle source using cubical and spherical directional detector arrays
Sahana Srikanth, N. S. Chaya, Sanjeev Gurugopinath, Koshy George · 2017
The detection of a particle source that is in the far-field is studied in this paper. Both cubical and spherical arrays are considered for this purpose. For a cubical array, we propose the truncated mean test (TMT) for stationary sources, and show that the test is optimal. An asymptotic analysis on the optimal probabilities of detection and false-alarm is presented. This analysis is then extended to spherical arrays. The ramification of source dynamics on the detection of a moving particle source is considered next, and an optimal test - in the Neyman-Pearson sense - called the truncated likelihood ratio test, is presented. In all cases, the theoretical analysis is validated through Monte Carlo simulations. Moreover, we note that the TMT significantly outperforms existing techniques that include the mean difference test, the source intensity test and the generalized likelihood ratio test.