The speed and lifetime of cosmic muons

• Welcome to this project! Below follows some useful information concerning the laborations and reports.

• The lecturewill be at the 18 January, 8:00-10:00 in room FL 71

• Prepare by reading the lecture notes and checking the references given at the lecture!

Note I! When you come to the first day of the project you must have considered which calibrations are needed to obtain the velocity and lifetime and have suggestions on how they can be performed!
Note II! If the report is handed in less then two weeks after your laborative work is finished I promise to correct it within three days. If your report is handed in later it will be put in the bottom of the (big) pile of reports... The absolutely last day to hand in the report if you want to pass this project without having to redo the laboration is the 1st of June 2000!
Place: Room F5218 in Forskarhuset
Bring: One PC floppy per group

• In this project you will measure the velocity and lifetime of cosmic muons. These particles are created in the upper atmosphere as cosmic radiation collides with molecules and induce nuclear reactions. The reaction products, of which one kind is muons, travel at velocities close to the speed of light. The muons decay as described in the introductory lecture.

• The purpose of this project is to acquaint you with some techniques of measuring very fast events with conventional electronics. It is also meant to give knowledge of general experimental character, concerning for example detector types, electronic modules and collection and treatment of data. You will set up the electronics needed, perform the measurements and deduce the results before writing your report.

• This project is carried out over two occasions, of which the first is a full day (eight hours!). During the first occasion the equipment is set up for the velocity measurement. This experiment, with calibrations, is then carried out before the setup is modified to allow for measurements of the lifetime of the muons. This second measurement will run during the week until the next Thursday, when you after some final work can start evaluating your results. Before coming to the first lab-day you MUST have discussed the project together and have a plan of what to do! More specifically, you need to have ideas of coupling schemes and calibration techniques! More information is found on the handout from the lecture and on the approximate time planning.

• Here you can find a list of the times for the laborations and of the groups signed up for the different occasions. You can not sign up for the laboration here, but to sign up you need to contact Karin. If you want to change groups you have to find someone to change places with since we cannot have more than three students in each group.

• The status of your report is found here. This list allows you to see whether your report is corrected and whether you got a return or not :o)

• The latest NEWS are found here! 

• If you have any questions you can contact me!

Information handed out on the introductory lecture:   pdf html

Pictures of the setup:

All detectors

The two lower detectors

Electronic modules

Manuals to the electronic modules that are available to you. The number in parenthesis is how many modules of each kind you have.

• Logic Unit (OR and NOT operations)       (4) :  EG&G Ortec model CO4020  (pdf)
• Constant Fraction Discriminator  (CFD)  (2) :  EG&G Ortec model 584            (pdf)
• Time-to-Amplitude Converter (TAC)   (1) :  EG&G Ortec model 567            (pdf)
• Delay (ns - range)                                          (2) :  EG&G Ortec model 425A       (pdf)
• Delay Amplifier (micro second range)     (1) :  EG&G Ortec model  427A      (html)

• The three plastic scintillator detectors (see pictures above)
• One oscilloscope
• Cables of differing lengths, BNC-NIM converters
• Three scintillator detectors (see figure)
• Some radioactive samples (60Co, 22Na, 241Am)
• Four lead bricks
• PC with software for data acquisition
• Measuring tape

Time planning:
 

• From  Kurskatalogen
• Franks page on AEP

A collection of science links
Scientific American online
CERN homepage
A virtual physics laboratory
Pictures from the Hubble telescope

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Last updated 00-02-24  by Karin