Non destructive investigations of cultural heritage objects with guided neutron: The Ancient Charm collaboration

When investigating valuable artistic objects, the jirst and joremost requirement is to preserve the integrity oj the objects. Various kinds oj physical processes can provide injormation about the material oj the objects, without destroying them. Neutrons, elemental particles having zero electric charge can enter deep into the irradiated material, and they can undergo dijjerent nuclear interactions. Both the neutron capture-based methods (i. e. Neutron Tomography - NT, Neutron Activation Analysis - NAA, Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis - PGAA and Neutron Resonance Capture Analysis - NRCA) and the neutron scattering-based methods (i. e. Time oj Flight Neutron Dijjraction - TOF-ND and Small Angle Neutron Scattering - SANS) have been previously applied to archaeometric research. A new European Commission junded project with ten collaborators, called Ancient Charm, has been launched with the aim oj combining the ajorementioned methods to achieve 3-D imaging and elemental mapping oj museum objects with complex structures.