Lifetime of Muons and the Detector’s Orientation

Andrew Du (Cranbrook High), Mason Hinawi (Crestwood High)

Mike Niedballla (Wayne State University)

Gil Paz (Wayne State University)

The purpose of this lab is to investigate muons and find the best way to study muon lifetime with the Quarknet cosmic ray muon detector. We were specifically trying to determine which orientation would provide the most data in the least amount of time. There are three different orientations that we tested: lying flat horizontally, standing vertically on the long edge, and standing vertically on the short edge. We found substantial data correlating the position and amount of decays. Since our results show standing the detector up on its short edge allows for significant improvement this could be the new standard procedure for future QuarkNet students studying lifetime decay.