Practical work CCP

Practical work involves the detection and measurement of cosmic rays (muons).

The aim is to familiarize students with an acquisition chain dedicated to measuring cosmic rays (mainly muons). Students will need to understand how the various components of the acquisition chain work together (power supplies, photomultipliers, scintillators, discriminators, oscilloscopes, etc.), and then build their own acquisition system using these components. One of the objectives of the device could be to determine the mass of the muon, but other purposes are possible and left to the imagination of the students.

The students will then have to take data from their device and analyze the data, taking into account the systematic and statistical errors in the data set.

The aim of this UE is to enable students to master the various classic elements of an acquisition chain

Basic knowledge of :

- General knowledge of particle-matter interactions and the principle of classical detectors as described in the M2 CCP module "Experimental Astroparticles 2".

- Special relativity and kinematics relativize,

- Nuclear and corpuscular physics
- General physics training level M1

Recommended prerequisites :

- Mathematics for physics

The practical sessions will take place in pairs or triples, depending on the number of students.
At the end of the practical sessions, a report will be submitted and graded according to the results obtained, the writing style and the pedagogical clarity. This mark will constitute the grade for the knowledge test.

- Get to know and familiarize yourself with the various devices in the acquisition chain.

- First measurements with a photomultiplier (study of variation in response as a function of distance/intensity of light source, saturation, etc.).

- Creation of a cosmic muon signal measurement chain for each group.

- Acquisition over several days

- Data analysis (determination of muon mass and measurement errors, etc.)

- Report writing