PHYS 481L

Spring 2009

Tom Browder

Working in teams of 2 or 3 persons (Tuesday and Thursday sections),
you will perform the following experiments in the course of the semester:

Relativistic Kinematics and Particle Physics (Computer Experiments, Jan 12-23)
Muon Decay (Jan 27-Feb 25)
Muon Counter Solid Angle Calculation (.pdf format) used in the Muon Decay Lab
Cosmic Ray History and Survey from Wikipedia
Review of Cosmic Ray Properties (.pdf format) from the Particle Data Group
Mossbauer Effect (March 3-April 14)
Mossbauer s700s single-channel-amplifier (.pdf file)
Mossbauer Linear Motor (.pdf file)
Mossbauer s700a (setup for constant velocity mode) (.pdf file)
Rudolf Mossbauer's Nobel Prize Lecture
Measurement of Gravitational Redshift with the Mossbauer Effect
by Pound and Rebka, Phys. Rev. Lett. paper (.pdf file)
Measurement of Mossbauer Effect in Iron
by Kistner and Sunyar, Phys. Rev. Lett. paper (.pdf file)
X-ray Diffraction (April 21-end of semester)
X-ray Diffraction Spectra and Schematic of Apparatus
Nickel Filter absorption curve (Taken from the manual for the apparatus)
A short discussion of X-ray Diffraction from crystals such as NaCl
(Taken from a Standard Textbook, HRK)
Chaos Experiment (Under construction)

For each experiment you will turn in your lab notebook and a Physical Review Letters style paper reporting the results.
The due dates for the reports (first drafts) will be:

TBA, 1st draft of muon report
TBA, 2nd draft of muon report
TBA

You will work on each experiment for about 4 scheduled lab periods. This is a 2 credit hour lab because you will in general not be able to complete the experiments in the scheduled lab periods. Your team will have to arrange to come in at other times. I am generally available to let you in to the lab (my office is WAT 233, down the hall) and there will also be a key with Peter Huang in Rm 235 that you can borrow. Note that you will have to make arrangements with me for use of radioactive sources at non-scheduled times.

Scheduling items: Last modified: 15 August 2009

Prof. Tom Browder / teb#phys.hawaii.edu