Precision estimates for tomographic nondestructive assay

One technique being applied to improve the accuracy of assays of waste in large containers is computerized tomography (CT). Research on the application of CT to improve both neutron and gamma-ray assays of waste is being carried out at LANL. For example, tomographic gamma scanning (TGS) is a single-photon emission CT technique that corrects for the attenuation of gamma rays emitted from the sample using attenuation images from transmission CT. By accounting for the distribution of emitting material and correcting for the attenuation of the emitted gamma rays, TGS is able to achieve highly accurate assays of radionuclides in medium-density wastes. It is important to develope methods to estimate the precision of such assays, and this paper explores this problem by examining the precision estimators for TGS