I am developing a pedagogical experiment appropriate for the undergraduate advanced physics lab to measure the "gyromagnetic ratio" g_μ of the muon. This ratio is an important measure of a muon's quantum mechanical properties. The technique is similar to the one originally used by Garwin, Lederman and Weinrich to determine parity non-conservation in the pion-muon-electron decay chain, and is a modification to the technique developed by C. Amsler. Briefly, positively charged muons produced ion the upper atmosphere are stopped in a copper plate located inside a solenoidal magnet and sandwiched by sheets of plastic scintillator. The muon precesses in the solenoid's magnetic field before it decays to a positron and 2 neutrinos and the positron is subsequently detected in the plastic scintillators. The shape of the decay time distribution determines g_μ.

Alex Weckiewicz is an undergraduate physics major assisting me on this project under the auspices of SMU's undergraduate associates (URA) program. His CAD drawing shows the 90 centimeter long mechanical frame that will be wrapped with magnet wire to make the solenoid that will produce our horizontal magnetic field. An electric current of 5 amps flowing through the windings will produce a magnetic field of roughly 50 gauss, sufficient for our measurement of g_μ. Below is a 3-D rendering of what the 1-meter long solenoid will look like when completed.