PES 315 Elementary Particle Physics

 

These labs are old labs from the 1960's and 1970's. They present images of tracks from elementary particles passing through and/or colliding in particle chambers. They lead you through various types of analysis.

This lab might also be appropriate to do as the final laboratory project.

 

I suspect that the analysis can be done more easily now using modern computer tools than the methods presented in the manuals, but all of the mathematics still applies.

Some labs only require counting events, which can be done easily enough.

Angles can be measured by enlarging the proper parts of the photos and printing them to measure with a protractor or using angle measurement tools in drawing programs.

Radius of curvature is tougher to measure. Most drawing programs allow you to determine the (x,y) coordinates of a point on the screen. By measuring several points of a curve and fitting the data to the equation of the curve, you should be able to find the radius of curvature.

(x - xo)2 + (y - y0)2 = r2

The complete set of manuals and digitized photographs is hundreds of MBytes. If you want to try one of more of these labs, talk to the instructor about getting a CD with all of the materials on it.

Manuals (PDF files):

Analysis of Bubble Chamber Interactions Using Relativistic Kinematics (Slide Set A) - corrected 11/19/04

Observing a Total Cross Section By Analyzing Bubble Chamber Photos (Slide Set B)

Measuring the Range of Pi-Mesons in Liquid Hydrogen (Slide Set C)