UNIVERSITY OF CAPE
TOWN
Department of Physics
PHYLAB3 Laboratory Course
Project
General information
The project will be introduced near the end of PHY3021F although it will
form part of your grade for PHY3022S. This is to allow the June/July vacation
time to be used for your project, if you want to. Beware, the end of PHY3022S
becomes very busy indeed.
You will need to choose one of the projects from the list below. Discuss the project with the relevant supervisor, who will give you further instruction and will help you as necessary during the project.
A maximum of two students may choose the same project to work on; first come, first served. Irrespective of the number of people working on the same project you will work alone, not in your lab pairs. Inform Dr. Horowitz of your project choice no later than May 25th, 2012. The report will be due during the last
week of PHY3022S at which stage you will also need to make a short oral presentation
on your project (to the rest of the class and some physics academics).
The project report is typically the same length as a report for your “usual”
practicals. It should represent your best effort at
completing a written report.
Experimental project supervisors and
names are:
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Allie
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Measuring the specific activity of a sample of Technitium-99 prepared for an international standards comparison
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Aschman
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Observation
of electron positron pair production from energetic gamma rays
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Aschman
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Angular
correlation of coincident gamma rays from cobalt-60 decay
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Aschman
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Angular
correlation of coincident gamma rays from sodium-22 decay
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Buffler
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Measurement of the gamma rays from natural uranium and granite
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Buffler
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Introduction to positron emission tracking
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Blumenthal
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Semiconductor quantum devices: resonant tunnelling of electrons in semiconductors
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Fearon
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X-ray
diffraction of crystals
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Hamilton
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Measurement
of the Z and W boson mass with ATLAS data
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Nchodu
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Lifetime
of Mn-56
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Nchodu
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Lifetime
of a silver isotope by neutron activation
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Peterson
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Measurement
of the binding energy of the deuteron
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Theoretical project supervisors and
names are:
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Fearick
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Calculation
of the eigenvalues of the vibrational
states in the iodine molecule
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Govender
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A free surface model of granular flow in rotating drums
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Horowitz
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Thermodynamic
properties of hot and dense nuclear matter
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Horowitz
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Nuclear properties from quantum hadrodynamics
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Peshier
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Quark
masses from colour hyperfine interaction in the baryons
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Peterson
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Monte
Carlo calculation of the critical mass of U-235
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Tupper
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Fluid flow through fibrous mats
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Weigert
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The Noether theorem in field theory
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Weigert
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Path integrals in statistical systems: from Fokker-Planck to Langevin and back again
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Wheaton
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Monte Carlo investigation of phase transitions in a simple spin model
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Brief descriptions of the projects
are as follows:
- Measuring the specific activity of a sample of Technitium-99 prepared for an international standards comparison
- The National Metrology Institute of South Africa (NMISA) situated in Rosebank is presently involved in a standards comparison with other international standards laboratories measuring the activity of a sample of technetium-99 (which is a pure beta emitter) The emphasis of the measurements are on identifying all sources of uncertainty and evaluating these. Three different (physics) methods are being used in each laboratory worldwide. Click here for more information.
- Observation of electron positron pair production from
energetic gamma rays
- Make sodium-24 from
neutron irradiation of sodium-23. Half life of about 15 hours. Use sodium
iodide detector to measure the 2.75 MeV gamma
ray, and observe 0.511 MeV annihilation
radiation, and also single and double escape peaks in spectrum. See the Mass 24 level scheme (from Table of Radioactive Isotopes)
- Angular correlation of coincident gamma rays from
cobalt-60 decay
- need to extend gamma
detector electronics by using a coincidence module. Two sodium iodide
detectors detect time-coincident gammas from a sodium-22 source. Angular
correlation of the gamma rays can be measured - are the 0.511 MeV gammas co-linear?
- read up on electronics
(TSCA, TAC etc) in Leo (Techniques in Nuclear...), Krane
and Knoll....
- Angular correlation of coincident gamma rays from
sodium-22 decay
- Coincident 1.275 Mev and 0.511 MeV gammas
should be observed. Also back-scattering can be observed.
- need to extend gamma
detector electronics by using a coincidence module. Two sodium iodide
detectors detect time-coincident gammas from a sodium-22 source. Angular
correlation of the gamma rays can be measured - are the 0.511 MeV gammas co-linear?
- read up on electronics
(TSCA, TAC etc) in Leo (Techniques in Nuclear...), Krane
and Knoll....
- Measurement of the gamma rays from natural uranium and granite
- The energy spectra of the gamma rays emitted from samples of natural uranium and granite will be measured using both a NaI and LaBr3 detectors.
- Introduction to positron emission particle tracking
- Two segments of a PET scanner will be used to track a moving tracer which has been labelled with 22Na (a positron emitter).
- A special algorithm will be used to triangulate the position of the tracer as a function of time.
- Semiconductor quantum devices: resonant tunnelling of electrons in semiconductors
- Resonance tunnelling diodes manufactured in a 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) have been fabricated in the cleanroom facilities at the University of Cambridge. The diodes range in size from 5 microns to 50 microns.
- For this project you will be expected to measure the current through the diodes at various temperatures down to liquid Nitrogen ranges to determine which of the diodes are functioning and what the resonance characteristic of the diodes are.
- This project will expose you to semiconductor physics, electronics and general experimental physics techniques.
- X-ray diffraction of crystals
- Use a small x-ray machine (Tel-X-Ometer) to explore the use of x-rays as an analytical tool. The emphasis of the project is on the interpretation of the observed x-ray scattering. Click here for more information.
- Measure the mass of the Z and W bosons.
- using proton-proton collision data
from the 2010 run of the ATLAS experiment at the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
- the lab will require knowledge of Python
and you will learn to use the ROOT analysis framework which is common in high energy physics.
- Lifetime of Mn-56
- The half life is of the
order of a couple of hours. You will have to take about ten spectra in
half hour runs. A good day's work! (with time for some reading in
between).
- Lifetime of a silver isotope by neutron activation
(involving coding one's own fitting programme)
- Measurement of the binding energy of the deuteron
- use equipment in PHYLAB3:
AmBe neutron source, sodium iodide gamma
detector.
- Moderate neutrons in hydrogeneous material. Measure gamma energy from
neutron-proton captures. Read up on Am-Be neutron source (see eg Krane). Use water, wax
or wood. Lead or iron shield against direct gamma background to be used.
Background subtraction needed. Excellent calibration needed (use the 4.4 MeV gamma ray from the first state excited state of
C-12).
- Photograph the layout
of the source, hydrogenous material, shield and detector, or make a scale
drawing.
- Calculation of the eigenvalues of the vibrational states in the iodine molecule
- Calculation of the eigenvalues of the vibrational states in the iodine molecule, by numerical solution of the Schrodinger equation.
- Write a Python (or other language) program to solve the 1-d SE for a given potential energy and apply it to the iodine molecule (which also features in the lab).
- Skills: programming, numerical analysis. Good understanding of the 2nd year computational labs.
- A free surface model of granular flow in rotating drums
- Using a continuum based model by Govender (more information here and here), investigate the influence of (prescribed) shear stress ansatz to the free surface shape of granular flows by comparing the solutions of the resulting (implicit) differential equation to nuclear imaging measurements of the same.
- Proficiency in programming and a working knowledge of differential equations and associated solution schemes is recommended.
- Thermodynamic properties of hot and dense nuclear
matter
- Analytically compute
the thermodynamic properties of a weakly-coupled quark-gluon plasma such
as the density, entropy, and speed of sound as a function of temperature
and compare these to a hadronic gas.
- Determine the Hagedorn temperature. Possibly investigate the phase
transition from normal nuclear matter to a quark-gluon plasma. Remote
possibility: investigate the thermodynamic properties of a
strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma.
- Nuclear properties from quantum hadrodynamics
- Using the mean field theory approximation to full quantum hadrodynamics compute properties of normal nuclear matter, for example its compressibility. Determine whether there are local minima of abnormal nuclear matter, either for nuclei comprised of neutrons and protons or for neutron stars.
- This project will introduce you to ideas in nuclear physics, special relativity, and quantum field theory. The project follows Boguta and Bodmer, Nuclear Physics A292 (1977). Chapter 4 of Glendenning's book "Compact Stars" is a useful resource.
- Determination of quark masses from colour hyperfine
interaction in the baryons, and the magnetic moments of the baryons.
- read up the ideas in
texts such as Martin, or Perkins: Introduction to High energy Physics,3rd
ed, and Griffiths: Intro to Particle Physics,
and also the relevant parts of a long review article
by Gasiorowicz and Rosner,
Am. J. Phys. 49, 954 (1981).
- if possible, derive the
relevant relations for the hadron masses in
octet and decuplet
- find the three
parameters, non-strange quark mass, strange quark mass, strength of
interaction, by fitting the theoretical mass (constituent masses plus
interaction energy) to known baryon masses (and perhaps to the magnetic
moments).
- Monte Carlo calculation of the critical mass of U-235
- Estimate the critical
mass of U-235 via a numerical Monte Carlo simulation that takes into
account the cross section for fission, scattering, and capture of fast
neutrons.
- Fluid flow through fibrous mats
- This project studies the theory for fluid flow a fibrous mat. More information here.
- The Noether theorem in field theory
- The Noether theorem in field theory--how to do it right and why most textbooks (including your favorite one) often are misleading.
- This topic is very flexible in scope and can give you anything from glimpses into field theory and the underlying symmetry concepts to a good head start into mastering modern field theory.
- Path integrals in statistical systems: from Fokker-Planck to Langevin and back again
- Statistical systems with random walk properties abound in modern physics applications ranging from applied physics to renormalization group applications in field theory. This project provides a modern introduction that can not be found in most textbooks and offers several possible flavors from purely theoretical to numerical implementations of specific systems.
- Numerical simulation of phase transitions
- Several simple models display phase transitions (e.g. the Ising model and the Spin-Potts model). However, traditional Monte Carlo techniques, such as the Metropolis Algorithm, are extremely inefficient, battling to overcome the phase barrier. Several techniques have been suggested to overcome these difficulties, such as the Wang-Landau and Multi-canonical algorithms. Both of these approaches determine the density of states, rather than construct a temperature-dependent canonical ensemble. In this project, a simple spin model exhibiting a phase transition will be studied using one of these techniques and the results compared to analytic results.
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