Simulation and evaluation of the absorption edge subtraction technique in energy-resolved X-ray radiography applied to the cultural heritage studies

abstract in this work the mathematical simulation of photon transport in the matter was used to evaluate the potentials of a new energy-resolved x-ray radiography system. the system is intended for investigations of cultural heritage object, mainly painting. the radiographic system uses polychromatic radiation from an x-ray tube and measures the spectrum transmitted through the object with an energy-dispersive x-ray detector on a pixel-by-pixel basis. manipulation of the data-set obtained allows constructing images with enhanced contrast for certain elements. here the use of the absorption edge subtraction technique was emphasized. the simulated results were in good agreement with the experimental data.