All “Cosmic Rays” experiments

Cosmic ray Telescope

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Cosmic Rays

The existence of cosmic rays was discovered by Victor Hess in 1912, performing experiments on the ionization of the air. The cosmic radiation is composed by ener-getic particles mainly originating outside the Solar System and even from distant galaxies. It could be divided into two component: “primary” and “secondary”. Of primary cosmic rays, which originate outside of Earth’s atmosphere, about 99% are the nuclei of well-known atoms and about 1% are solitary electrons. Of the nuclei, about 90% are protons, 9% are alpha particles and 1% are the nuclei of heavier elements. A very small fraction are stable particles of antimatter, such as positrons or antiprotons. When cosmic rays penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere they collide with atoms and molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen. The interaction produces a cascade of lighter particles, a so-called shower secondary radiation, including protons, x-rays, muons, alpha particles, pions, electrons, and neutrons (figure 1). In first approximation about of 30% of the secondary radiation is composed by electrons and photons, while the 70% by muons.

A caccia di muoni

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Cosmic Rays, Particle Physics

In questa tesina ho scelto di parlare dei raggi cosmici e dell’esperimento di Rossi e Hall, che ha ispirato la realizzazione del piccolo esperimento presentato nella seconda parte. Parlerò infine delle applicazioni pratiche della misura del flusso di muoni cosmici

Radiographie terrestre avec les rayons cosmiques

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Cosmic Rays, Particle Physics

Quel est le taux de rayons cosmiques en fonction de l’altitude et de la profondeur géologique? Théorie et mesures. La physique et l’astronomie en particulier sont des sciences qui me passionnent depuis quelques années et je compte poursuivre mes études dans ce domaine. Le travail de maturité est une occasion d’approfondir un sujet qui me captive vraiment et qui peut m’être utile dans le futur. Lorsqu’on nous a présenté les différentes formes de travail de maturité, je me suis interrogé sur la façon dont je souhaitais conduire mon projet: effectuer un travail de recherche en répondant à une problématique mais également mener un travail d’expérimentation me semblait intéressant. J’ai eu par conséquent l’idée de combiner la pratique et la théorie, en réalisant des mesures tout en répondant à une problématique.

Applications of Digital Pulse Acquisition Systems and Software Defined Electronics (SDE) in Advanced Teaching Labs

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Cosmic Rays, Gamma Spectroscopy, Nuclear Physics and Radioactivity, Particle Physics, Particle Physics

The CAEN DT5790N is a digital acquisition system which houses two high voltage supplies and two highspeed (12bits, 250MHz) waveform (pulse digitizers. These in tandem with the use of post processing software combine to produce a Software Defined Electronics (SDE) system that can be used in several advanced teaching experiments. FPGAs and built-in software can be used to display the pulse waveform and produce a time-stamped output (4 ns intervals) in a text list for post processing, e.g via MATLAB, Python, LabView, ROOT, BASIC, etc. The SDE can than be reconfigured as neeeded and used to run many nuclear and other expermiments in an advances teaching lab course. This serves to expose students to modern state-of-the-art data acquisition technology. Experiments such as Fission Neutron, Time-of-Flight, Comptron Scattering, Co-60 Gamma Coincidence, Na-22 Gamma-Gamma Annighilation. Muon Lifetime, etc. are well suited for SDE. The SDE system also provides a very adaptive and cost-effective substitute for NIM or CAMAC electronics as SDE can be easily set up with only a single digitizer box and a computer for many different experiments. Typical data using the SDE application we have developed for several advanced teaching lab experiments will be shown. Several other digitizers similar to the CAEN unit are also available for SDE.

High School Students’ Water Cherenkov Detector

September 24th, 2021| |CAEN Experiments, Cosmic Rays, Particle Physics, Particle Physics

During last decade a lot of outreach activities were born to bring Science in the youths’ hearts through the study of elementary particles physics using frontier detectors. The aim of this project, i-SpeChe, is to develop a multipurpose prototype detector for a wide range of experiments from the study of natural radioactivity to cosmic rays flux using a SiPM matrix easily coupled to different scintillators or, to realize a Water Cherenkov Detector, to water tank. All the detectors used for outreach activities must be robust, easy to use and transport, LV based and economic. The choice is usually scintillator+ SiPM and this limits the knowledge of the wide range of existing detectors used in particles and astroparticle physics. Our effort is to realize a Cherenkov detector coupling water to a SiPM matrix. Cherenkov detectors are now found in a wide variety of unique applications throughout physics, astrophysics, and biomedicine, with more powerful, and larger devices continuing to be developed and implemented. Particular examples include the many detectors at particle accelerators for hadronic particle identification, the large water Cherenkov detectors used for neutrino detection both for astrophysics and accelerator studies, and the imaging air Cherenkov telescopes used to study very-high-energy γ rays in cosmic radiation. Most of the experiments based on Cherenkov effect in water use PMT. The use of SiPM coupled with water is still under study and i-SpeChe is the first approach for the realization of an outreach Water Cherenkov detector with SiPM.

Muons Detection

CAEN Educational
SG6211A
Categories: CAEN Experiments, Cosmic Rays | Tags: Cosmic Rays, Cosmics, muons, Muons Detection

Download printable version Difficult Execution Time Data Analysis Radioactive Sources No Yes Hardware setupThis experiment guide is referred to the SP5600D/AN educational kit. If you don’t have this kit, choose your own from the following list to visualize the related experiment guide:SG6211D - Cosmic HunterEquipmentSP5600D/AN - Educational Beta KitAdditional Gamma Radioactive Source Purpose of