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      Discovery of a big void in Khufu's Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons

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          Abstract

          The Great Pyramid or Khufu's Pyramid was built on the Giza Plateau (Egypt) during the IVth dynasty by the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), who reigned from 2509 to 2483 BC. Despite being one of the oldest and largest monuments on Earth, there is no consensus about how it was built. To better understand its internal structure, we imaged the pyramid using muons, which are by-products of cosmic rays that are only partially absorbed by stone. The resulting cosmic-ray muon radiography allows us to visualize the known and potentially unknown voids in the pyramid in a non-invasive way. Here we report the discovery of a large void (with a cross section similar to the Grand Gallery and a length of 30 m minimum) above the Grand Gallery, which constitutes the first major inner structure found in the Great Pyramid since the 19th century. This void, named ScanPyramids Big Void, was first observed with nuclear emulsion films installed in the Queen's chamber (University of Nagoya), then confirmed with scintillator hodoscopes set up in the same chamber (KEK) and re-confirmed with gas detectors outside of the pyramid (CEA). This large void has therefore been detected with a high confidence by three different muon detection technologies and three independent analyses. These results constitute a breakthrough for the understanding of Khufu's Pyramid and its internal structure. While there is currently no information about the role of this void, these findings show how modern particle physics can shed new light on the world's archaeological heritage.

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          ROOT — An object oriented data analysis framework

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            Search for hidden chambers in the pyramids.

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              MICROMEGAS: a high-granularity position-sensitive gaseous detector for high particle-flux environments

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                05 November 2017
                Article
                10.1038/nature24647
                1711.01576
                b4d69f1b-e212-4e24-83bb-53817f431616

                http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

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                Nature (2017)
                physics.ins-det

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