Astroparticles 2

This course describes the various detectors and the physical processes involved in particle detection in high-energy physics. Next, we will describe how the main particle accelerators work—not only in high-energy physics but also in many other fields, such as medicine, industry, materials science, archaeology, and more.

The course provides a detailed description of the physical processes and experimental techniques involved in the detection of charged and neutral particles in detectors, as these detections form the basis of all physical measurements.

We will provide a detailed description of the various types of radiation and particle-matter interactions.

We will focus on describing the methodologies associated with these processes as well as their statistical analysis.

The primary objective of the course is for students to be able to understand and/or identify the types of detectors that will be needed for their future projects, while also being able to roughly assess their future performance, efficiency, costs, etc. The second objective is to make students aware of the systematic errors inherent in all detectors during data analysis, as these errors have a definite impact on the physical interpretation of these analyses.

- General education in physics at the M1 level,

- Nuclear and particle physics,

- Mathematics for Physics.

Recommended prerequisites:

Basics of:

- Special relativity and relativistic kinematics,

- Nuclear physics.

A 3-hour final written exam without reference materials.

Course materials/tutorials and lectures/exercise solutions in English.
Section 1 “Introduction to Detectors”
1/ Particle-Matter Interactions for Beginners
2/ Examples of Major Discoveries Made Possible by Advances in Detector Technology
A/ Discovery of the Positron by C. Anderson and Imaging Techniques
B/ First Neutral Current Events and Electronic Detectors
C/ Discovery of Intermediate Vector Bosons W±, Z0, UA1 and UA2 at CERN in anti-p p interactions
D/ Discovery of neutrino oscillations and detection of neutrinos from SN1987A
E/ Discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in p p interactions
3/ A very simple detector: 
                A/ Key components of a typical scintillation counter
B/ Scintillators
C/ Photomultiplier Tubes, Light Collection, and Photon Detection
4/ Parameters characterizing detectors
5/ Example of a particle detector in space for gamma-ray astronomy: The Fermi Observatory!

Section 3: “Interaction of Charged Particles with Matter”
1) Energy Loss of Heavy Charged Particles:
A/ Bethe-Bloch Formula
B/ Discussion of the Bethe-Bloch Formula
C/ δ-Rays
D/ DeltaE–E Telescopes, Particle Identification from dE/dx
2) Interaction of electrons with matter
A/ Electron energy loss
B/ Critical energy
C Mean free path
D/ Radiation length
3) Fluctuations:
A/ Fluctuations in energy loss distribution, Landau distribution
B/ Multiple scattering
C/ How does the interaction of charged particles with matter impact science? Some examples from the LAT
4) Cherenkov radiation
A/ Definition
B/ Cherenkov counters

Section 4: “Interaction of γ-rays with matter”
1/ Attenuation of γ-rays: Some definitions
2/ Photoelectric absorption
3/ Compton scattering
4/ Pair production

Section 5: “Electromagnetic and Hadronic Showers”
1/ Electromagnetic Showers
2/ Hadron Interactions
3/ Calorimetry

Section 3: “Accelerators”
1/ History and overview of particle accelerators
A/ Why study particle accelerators?
B/ Radioactivity
C/ Cosmic rays
D/ Early accelerators
2/ Colliders
A/ Overview
B/ Luminosity
C/ Particle sources
D/ Synchrotron radiation
3/ Major colliders and accelerators
A/ Cyclotrons
B/ Synchrocyclotrons (protons)
C/ Linear accelerators (electrons)
D/ The LHC accelerator complex