Mentorship

1. Mentorship James Costlow, Ryan Wilken, and Arnav Joshi Capstone B7

2. Project overview • with this mentorship we will be collecting data from the Cosmic Ray Muon Detector(CRMD) • The data we will be collecting is the number of Muons that come through the atmosphere • We will form a presentation to present at the district wide showcase • Along with going to the showcase we will make a presentation on how to operate and set up the detector for the future students that will be in charge of the project

3. What all will be recorded? • We will keep track of the number of Muons that hit the detector • Location of where the detector is at as well as the paddles used for collection • We will moniter the whether in the surrounding area • Date/time during the collection • And other outstanding events that may have occured during the collection

4. How will we record the data? • We will be stacking or spreading out the paddles to see how the arrangement may affect the data in the collection • Also we will be experimenting to see if there are any outside forces that affect the collections

5. Where will we record this ? • We will record the date, whether, location, ect. in a log book for every collection • We will upload the actual numbers we record to E-Lab • We will compile all the information in a presentation to show at the Waxahachie ISD district wide showcase

6. What are Muons? • Well Muons are subatomic particles that are unstable, and are related to the electron in the lepton • Muons has a negative charge but they are 200 time more massive • Carl D Anderson discovered the Muon while studying Cosmic Radiation • We don’t know much about them but we do know that they are unstable, carry a charge and pass through every thing

7. Where do Muons come from? • Well they come from many places, however the ones that we will reading are carried by cosmic waves sent from the sun • Most of the waves are broken up by the earths atmosphere, but some particles still make it through • Among these particles are the unstoppable Muons

8. How will you measure them? • We will register them on the CRMD • The detector has sentellating paddles, theses paddles have a charge going through them that flash every time the charged muon passes through it • The stronger the charge in the paddles the more muons we will read

9. What is the CRMD? • It is the device we will use to register the rate of Muon flux or the rate at which Muons pass through the sentellating paddles • Through the detector we will record the number of Muons that pass through the CRMD

10. Parts of the CRMD • Bread Board Paddles

11. Continued • GPS control station

12. The Bread Board • The Bread Board is the “Brain” of the machine, it connects all the components of the CRMD to the computer and keeps track of hits we receive, while also uploading the data to E-Lab • These systems include the GPS, and paddles

13. The control station • The control station routs the color coded paddles • The control station connects to the Bread Board relaying the information that was being collected • the Bread Board can record the hits on each paddle the data from the paddles the begins to count.

14. The paddles • We have four paddles • Each paddle is color coded and hooks up into a different slot in the controlstaion • The paddles are stacked or spread across a given area to record the muons passing through

15. The GPS • We will be using a GPS to help locate our positioin • Knowing our exact location is an important piece of information we need to know • Areas receive more or less Muons than other areas and this helps s compare the discrepencies

16. Sources • http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~pavone/particle-www/particle_physics.html • http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_muons • http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-muon.htm#did-you-know • http://www.fnal.gov/pub/muon_collider/why-muons.html • Collections and assembly binders • ScienceNOW magazine muon mutiny