Algorithmic techniques for quantitative Compton tomography

Compton tomography is a non-destructive technique that allows one to reconstruct the spatial distribution of the electronic density of the sample analyzed. This information is complementary to the absorption coefficient distribution at a given energy, which can be obtained by a more conventional transmission tomography. However, the reconstruction algorithms used in Compton tomography are different and more complex than those used in transmission tomography. This is mainly due to the absorption of the X-ray photons along the path from the source to the interaction point and from the interaction point to the detector. Only a few of the reconstruction algorithms reported in the literature take absorption corrections into account, and the problems of a quantitative reconstruction have seldom been discussed. In this paper a new kind of reconstruction algorithm is described and the first results are reported and discussed.