Full-spectrum modeling of mobile gamma-ray spectrometry systems in scattering media

Mobile gamma-ray spectrometry (MGRS) systems are essential for localizing, identifying, and quantifying gamma-ray sources in complex environments. Full-spectrum template matching offers the highest accuracy and sensitivity for these tasks but is limited by the computational cost of generating the required spectral templates. Here, we present a generalized full-spectrum modeling framework for MGRS systems in scattering media, enabling near-real-time template generation through dynamic, anisotropic instrument response functions. Benchmarked against high-fidelity brute-force Monte Carlo simulations, our method yields a computational speedup by a factor of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:mrow> <a:mi mathvariant="script">O</a:mi> </a:mrow> <a:mo stretchy="false">(</a:mo> <a:mrow> <a:msup> <a:mn>10</a:mn> <a:mn>7</a:mn> </a:msup> </a:mrow> <a:mo stretchy="false">)</a:mo> </a:math> , while achieving comparable accuracy with median spectral deviations below 6%. The methodology presented is platform-agnostic and applicable across marine, terrestrial, and airborne domains, unlocking new capabilities for MGRS in a variety of applications, such as environmental monitoring, geophysical exploration, nuclear safeguards, and radiological emergency response.