Level of study
BAC +5
ECTS
3 credits
Component
Faculty of Science
Hourly volume
20h
Description
The practical work concerns the detection and measurement of cosmic rays (muons).
The aim is to become familiar with an acquisition chain dedicated to the measurement of cosmic rays (mainly muons). The students will have to understand the individual functioning of the different elements involved in the acquisition chain (power supplies, photomultipliers, scintillators, discriminators, oscilloscopes...) and then realize by themselves an acquisition device from these elements. One of the objectives of the device could be the determination of 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 of the data set.
Objectives
The objective of this course is to enable students to master the various classical elements of an acquisition chain
Necessary pre-requisites
Basic knowledge of :
- General knowledge of particle-matter interactions and of the principle of classical detectors as written in the M2 CCP module "Experimental Astroparticles 2
- Special relativity and kinematics relativizes,
- Nuclear and Corpuscular Physics
- General training in physics level M1
Recommended Prerequisites:
- Mathematics for physics
Knowledge control
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 will be graded according to the results obtained, the writing and the educational clarity. This note will constitute the note of the control of knowledge.
Syllabus
- Contact and familiarization with the different devices of the acquisition chain.
- First measurements with a photomultiplier (study of the variation of the response according to the distance/intensity of the light source, saturation...)
- Creation for each group of a measurement chain of signals coming from cosmic muons.
- Acquisition over several days
- Data analysis (determination of the muon mass and errors associated with the measurements, ...)
- Writing the report