Cosmic detectors with scintillators
This activity is made up of two parts:
a single plastic scintillator is lit up every time a cosmic particle (typically a muon) traverses it and is read out with an osciloscope. The signal is displayed and a led indicates the passage of the particle.
a mini cosmic detector is constructed, which includes 5 layers of scintillators in x and y directions, connected to photomultipliers that are read out with BabyMind electronics. For the Nuit de la Science set-up we connected part of three layers (see pictures below). An event display shows (in data play-back mode) the hits and reconstructed tracks, with the option that only hits are displayed. The software updates every time there is a new (played-back) event coming and displays the angle of the track as well as the exponential time interval spectrum.
Comment for the future:
Can create an interactive activity where people see the hits and try to guess the track. Need to improve on the poster, including a drawing or picture of the simplified setup, possibly explaining the interactive activity. The screen was not very visible with the sun hitting it making the visualisation hard to see.
Activity organisers / animators
Saba Parsa (PhD student)
Cyril Alispach (PhD student)
Emanuele Ripiccini (Postdoc)
Andrii Nagai (Postdoc)
Etam Noah (MER)
Lorenzo Paolozzi (Postdoc)
Yves Renier (Postdoc)
Activity poster