Beam hardening is an effect that occurs when a polychromatic X-ray beam (a beam containing a wide spectrum of energies) passes through a material. As the beam penetrates the material, lower-energy X-rays are preferentially absorbed over higher-energy ones. This process increases the average energy of the beam, which is referred to as the "hardening" of the radiation.
In Computed Tomography (CT), beam hardening is a common artifact that causes an object of uniform composition to appear as if it has varying densities in the reconstructed image.
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