2014 Annual Report - Purdue Summer Workshop

This summer, Purdue hosted five teachers from Central Indiana for four days, followed by a tour of Fermilab.   Almost all the teachers this year were new to QuarkNet so the workshop emphasized a basic introduction to fundamental particle physics, particle accelerators and cosmic ray physics.   The cosmic ray detectors were used to study coincidence rates under various conditions and these rates were compared with the rate that would have been expected from purely random coincidences in independent counters.  In this way the participants were able to deduce the presence of both cosmic rays and extended air showers and to measure the speed of cosmic rays.  This year, data was collected using both the software interface originally developed at Purdue and the version on which development has continued at Fermilab.  We also went through the CMS MasterClass exercises to illustrate the activities their students would undertake in Spring 2015.  This year, we were fortunate to be visited by Nate Unterman, a QuarkNet fellow from the UIC group who observed the use of the two software interfaces and presented the activities his students have undertaken with the cosmic ray detector at his school.  We were also visited by Prof. Neeti  Parashar from the Calumet campus of Purdue University, who is starting a new QuarkNet center there.  On Friday, the group toured the D0 detector and the MINOS detector at Fermilab.