Mean Lifetime Part 3: MINERvA

minerva

Students collect data from muons which decay in the MINERvA detector in the Fermilab NuMi beamline to understand particle decay and determine the muon lifetime.

Mean Lifetime Part 3: MINERvA builds on the Mean Lifetime Part 1: Dice which uses dice as a model for decaying particles, and Mean Lifetime Part 2: Cosmic Muons which uses muon data collected with a QuarkNet cosmic ray muon detector (detector); however, these activities are not required prerequisites. In this activity, students access authentic muon data collected by the Fermilab MINERvA detector in order to determine the half-life and mean lifetime of these fundamental particles. This activity is based on the Particle Decay activity from Neutrinos in the Classroom (http://neutrino-classroom.org/particle_decay.html).

Materials
Teacher Notes486.05 KB
Attributes
Data Strand
Level
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Practices
Technology Requirements