Advanced Lab Course
The lifetime of cosmic muons stopped in a scintillation detector is determined using a simple electronic setup.
| Contact Person: |
Dr. Hans-Georg Zaunick, II. Physics Institute |
| Location: | II. Physics Institute, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 16, Room 105 |
| Date: | by arrangement |
| Duration: | approx. 4 hours + long term measurement (1 week) |
| Supervisors: |
Dr. Hans-Georg Zaunick, email Marvin Peter, email Lara Dippel, email |
The Earth is constantly being hit by high-energy particles from the depths of space. This phenomenon was discovered in 1912 by the Austrian physicist Viktor Franz Hess. Prior to this, natural radioactivity was already known and it was assumed that the ionizing radiation measured on the earth's surface was caused by radioactive nuclides in the earth's crust.
Hess ascended to altitudes of 5000 m in a hot air balloon. He carried several electrometers to measure the intensity of ionizing radiation and discovered that the intensity of the radiation increases with increasing altitude. He concluded that this radiation reaches us from the depths of the universe and gave it the name cosmic radiation. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 for his research.
On impact with the earth's atmosphere, the primary high-energy particle produces a large shower. A large proportion of the secondary particles produced are muons. In our practical experiment, we therefore use cosmic cosmic radiation as a "muon source". The muon, the heavy brother of the electron, was first discovered in 1947 by Powell and his colleagues.
Determining the lifetime of muons is an ideal experiment to get a taste of the world of elementary particles. The equipment required is minimal, but nevertheless offers a good insight into the methods of experimental particle physics.