A.D.O.M Airborne.Detector.of.Muons Tye Barba Anna Chang Natalina DeFusco David Hood

Background Info A muon is an elementary particle that is a very heavy electron Lifetime of 2.2 microseconds, makes up more then half of cosmic radiation Created when cosmic rays (mostly protons) from deep space hit the earth’s atmosphere at about 15,000m

Experiment Description Two Photomultiplier tubes (PMT), a scintillator panel and a QNET board are sent up to 1000 ft to detect a change in the rate of muons Hypothesis- more muons will be detected at a higher altitude

Description of equipment Scintillator panel PMT QNET board (a)‏ X-BEE Transmitter (b)‏ Power Supply (c)‏ (a)‏ (b)‏ (c)‏

Procedure A gondola was constructed and attached to a weather balloon and lifted to 1000 ft. Data was taken for 30 min. A XBEE transmitter transmits the data to a receiver on the ground. The counts are graphed and analyzed

The Data At ground level the rate was 2.6 counts per minute At 766ft the rate was 94.1 counts per minute We did have a very large discrepancy between the rates from the ground and at 766ft About 36 times more muons at 766ft than at ground level

Sample Data E966E0C7 BB E966E0C B B B E53FE6DC A9 2C F9087C B2 3D A54678A5 A B26F7C B FA3F9F AB A E AC CEF6D BE ][|\| |-|3X/-\|)3(][/\/\/-\|_!!! (hexadecimal)‏

Conclusion We checked the PMT and threshold voltages For this test, the data is valid If repeated, the data would probably change To improve, we would take more sets of data to reduce the error and take an average