Techniques for Nuclear and Particle Physics Experiments : A How-to Approach (2ND)

Für Studierende, Wissenschaftler, Ingenieure und Laboranten, die Experimente in Kern- und Elementarteilchenphysik konzipieren und durchführen, füllt dieses Buch eine Lücke. Es kann sowohl als Lehrbuch für Einsteiger als auch von Spezialisten für die tägliche Arbeit im Labor verwendet werden. Not quite six years have passed since the appearance of the first edition of this book. This is not a long period. Yet the rapid pace of scientific and technological development today is such that any book on experimental technique must be wary of becoming ob solete in some way or another even in such a short span of time. Thus, when the publisher Springer-Verlag informed me of the need for a new printing of this book, I decided it was an opportune moment to update some of the chapters as well as to include some new material. The result is this second edition. The most notable changes have been in Chapters 2 and 3. In the latter, which con cerns radiation protection, most of the sections have been rewritten to take into account the new recommendations from the International Commission on Radiation Protection, the most important of which are the new dose limits for exposure to ionizing radiation. In addition, emphasis has now been put on the use of SI units in dosimetry, i.e., the Gray and Sievert, which have now become standard. 1. Basic Nuclear Processes in Radioactive Sources.- 1.1 Nuclear Level Diagrams.- 1.2 Alpha Decay.- 1.3 Beta Decay.- 1.4 Electron Capture (EC).- 1.5 Gamma Emission.- 1.5.1 Isomeric States.- 1.6 Annihilation Radiation.- 1.7 Internal Conversion.- 1.8 Auger Electrons.- 1.9 Neutron Sources.- 1.9.1 Spontaneous Fission.- 1.9.2 Nuclear Reactions.- 1.10 Source Activity Units.- 1.11 The Radioactive Decay Law.- 1.11.1 Fluctuations in Radioactive Decay.- 1.11.2 Radioactive Decay Chains.- 1.11.3 Radioisotope Production by Irradiation.- 2. Passage of Radiation Through Matter.- 2.1 Preliminary Notions and Definitions.- 2.1.1 The Cross Section.- 2.1.2 Interaction Probability in a Distance x. Mean Free Path.- 2.1.3 Surface Density Units.- 2.2 Energy Loss of Heavy Charged Particles by Atomic Collisions.- 2.2.1 Bohr's Calculation - The Classical Case.- 2.2.2 The Bethe-Bloch Formula.- 2.2.3 Energy Dependence.- 2.2.4 Scaling Laws for dE/dx.- 2.2.5 Mass Stopping Power.- 2.2.6 dE/dx for Mixtures and Compounds.- 2.2.7 Limitations of the Bethe-Bloch Formula and Other Effects.- 2.2.8 Channeling.- 2.2.9 Range.- 2.3 Cherenkov Radiation.- 2.4 Energy Loss of Electrons and Positrons.- 2.4.1 Collision Loss.- 2.4.2 Energy Loss by Radiation: Bremsstrahlung.- 2.4.3 Electron-Electron Bremsstrahlung.- 2.4.4 Critical Energy.- 2.4.5 Radiation Length.- 2.4.6 Range of Electrons.- 2.4.7 The Absorption of ? Electrons.- 2.5 Multiple Coulomb Scattering.- 2.5.1 Multiple Scattering in the Gaussian Approximation.- 2.5.2 Backscattering of Low-Energy Electrons.- 2.6 Energy Straggling: The Energy Loss Distribution.- 2.6.1 Thick Absorbers: The Gaussian Limit.- 2.6.2 Very Thick Absorbers.- 2.6.3 Thin Absorbers: The Landau and Vavilov Theories.- 2.7 The Interaction of Photons.- 2.7.1 Photoelectric Effect.- 2.7.2Compton Scattering.- 2.7.3 Pair Production.- 2.7.4 Electron-Photon Showers.- 2.7.5 The Total Absorption Coefficient and Photon Attenuation.- 2.8 The Interaction of Neutrons.- 2.8.1 Slowing Down of Neutrons. Moderation.- 3. Radiation Protection. Biological Effects of Radiation.- 3.1 Dosimetric Units.- 3.1.1 The Roentgen.- 3.1.2 Absorbed Dose.- 3.1.3 Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE).- 3.1.4 Equivalent Dose.- 3.1.5 Effective Dose.- 3.2 Typical Doses from Sources in the Environment.- 3.3 Biological Effects.- 3.3.1 High Doses Received in a Short Time.- 3.3.2 Low-Level Doses.- 3.4 Dose Limits.- 3.5 Shielding.- 3.6 Radiation Safety in the Nuclear Physics Laboratory.- 4. Statistics and the Treatment of Experimental Data.- 4.1 Characteristics of Probability Distributions.- 4.1.1 Cumulative Distributions.- 4.1.2 Expectation Values.- 4.1.3 Distribution Moments. The Mean and Variance.- 4.1.4 The Covariance.- 4.2 Some Common Probability Distributions.- 4.2.1 The Binomial Distribution.- 4.2.2 The Poisson Distribution.- 4.2.3 The Gaussian or Normal Distribution.- 4.2.4 The Chi-Square Distribution.- 4.3 Measurement Errors and the Measurement Process.- 4.3.1 Systematic Errors.- 4.3.2 Random Errors.- 4.4 Sampling and Parameter Estimation. The Maximum Likelihood Method.- 4.4.1 Sample Moments.- 4.4.2 The Maximum Likelihood Method.- 4.4.3 Estimator for the Poisson Distribution.- 4.4.4 Estimators for the Gaussian Distribution.- 4.4.5 The Weighted Mean.- 4.5 Examples of Applications.- 4.5.1 Mean and Error from a Series of Measurements.- 4.5.2 Combining Data with Different Errors.- 4.5.3 Determination of Count Rates and Their Errors.- 4.5.4 Null Experiments. Setting Confidence Limits When No Counts Are Observed.- 4.5.5 Distribution of Time Intervals Between Counts.- 4.6 Propagation ofErrors.- 4.6.1 Examples.- 4.7 Curve Fitting.- 4.7.1 The Least Squares Method.- 4.7.2 Linear Fits. The Straight Line.- 4.7.3 Linear Fits When Both Variables Have Errors.- 4.7.4 Nonlinear Fits.- 4.8 Some General Rules for Rounding-off Numbers for Final Presentation.- 5. General Characteristics of Detectors.- 5.1 Sensitivity.- 5.2 Detector Response.- 5.3 Energy Resolution. The Fano Factor.- 5.4 The Response Funct