User:JGunther
From MariachiWiki
My name is Jacqueline Gunther. I am currently a student at Stony Brook University. I am majoring in Biomedical Enginnereing. I'm part of the program Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and I am in the WSE 187class. My hobbies include video games, tennis, and writing.
In the first experiment, we tried to determine the efficiency of one of the detectors by comparing the number of particles detected through three detectors and the number of particles detected in the top and bottom detector. We used three detectors that were stacked one on top of the other. We used a duration time of 100 seconds when recording the number of particles that passed through the detectors.
As seen in the first image, the number of particles that are detected by the top and the bottom detector stay relatively the same. However, as the voltage is increased the number of particles detected by all three seems to increase. As result it can be concluded that as voltage is increased the efficiency of the single detector increases as well.
For a possible experiment, I would be curious to find out how the orientation of the detectors affect 1) particle detection rate and 2) how this could possibly have an affect on velocity. This velocity, of course, would not be the over all speed of the partcle but the velocity in the direction between the detectors since the particles do not always hit the detector at a 90 degree angle. For this experiment the detectors will be placed at various angles in correlation to the ground to see the rate of the particles and possibly find the velocity. This will require at least two detectors, the wheel, and a computer. What needs to be measured is the number of particles per a period of time, the distance between the detectors, and the difference in time between the first hit and the second. I would predict as the angle between the earth and the area vector of the detector decreases so does the number count per period of time, as well as, the velocity.
In our April 15 experiment, we tried to determine if their is a difference in rate of particles hitting the detectors if their is a distance between them. The detectors were moved to several different distances apart and the number of particles that hit the detectors was counted.
On the x-axis is distance and the y-axis is number of cosmic particles detected. The first series refers to the coincidences between the first and second detector (the one that was moved). The second series refers to all three detectors, in which the third dector remained a distance of 0 from the first.
When the distance versus the rate is plotted:
an almost exponential curve is observed. More data is needed in order to see the true trend of this effect. But as for now it seems that as the distance increases the rate of particle detection decreases, as well.
After finding more data points and factoring in the error bars, it still seems that an exponential function is graphed. This would make sense, since, as the distance between the detectors increases the less particles from the extreme angles can be measured. For example:
The detector can only detect what passes the blue line. Since the blue line is larger in the first example then it will detect more particles than the second.
For the next experiment, we tried to find the time it took for one particle to hit a second detector after it had hit the first. We obtained the following data.
This shows as distance is increased the time between the dection times also increases. To compensate for the time it takes for the signal to travel through the wires and detectors the difference of the averages are taken. This means that the average time it takes for a particle to travle from one detector to another is 4.2 ns.
