Is 10 ps coincidence time resolution reachable
In plain words
Today the best clinical scanners time the two photons to about two hundred trillionths of a second (picoseconds). Getting to ten would place each emission directly, with no image reconstruction.
Precise statement
Determine whether a coincidence time resolution of 10 ps full width at half maximum is attainable in a detector of sufficient stopping power for 511 keV photons, which corresponds to a position uncertainty of about 1.5 mm along the line of response. Required chain: photon production statistics and rise time, light transport, photodetector transit-time spread, and electronics jitter. An answer is a demonstrated detector pair or a proof that a chain element forbids it.
What would settle it
A bench measurement of 10 ps coincidence resolution between two detectors with 511 keV efficiency comparable to clinical crystals.
Status in the literature
Laboratory detector pairs reached the tens of ps range by the mid 2020s; clinical systems were at about 180 to 230 ps.
Related problems
- More general than Fast light emission channels in scintillators
- More general than Fundamental bound on scintillation timing