Identifying Particle Physics Events at CERN

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this lab is to allow you to identify for yourself some interesting particle physics interactions or "events". These events have been seen using an experiment called OPAL, at CERN, near to Geneva. This experiment ran at LEP (the Large Electron-Positron collider). LEP has just been replaced by the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) which is the largest and most energetic particle accelerator in the world.

The lab consists of a tutorial (parts 1-3) at the end of which (part 4) you will be asked to try to identify some events, using what you have learnt, just as would occur in a real research situation. Follow the links below in the Table of Contents.

Table of Contents

*Introduction
*The Detector and How to Understand the Event Pictures
*Part 1
*How to Identify Events Containing a matter Particle-Antiparticle Pair
*Part 2
*How to Identify Events Containing a Pair of W Particles
*Part 3
*Part 4

Acknowledgements.