Cosmic Ray Experiment I. Tips: Don't touch equpiment while it is running, make sure to check the working order of each scintillator panel to make sure they have somewhat similar sensistivity. Make sure to understand that zero degrees is when the panels are perpendicular to the table/horizontal surface. II. Prediction: the cosmic ray detection will be less as the angle approaches 0 degrees.
III. PAC Meeting Possible Questions: 1. Which floor and wall will we place the detector? Lowest floor so that we are consistent with all buildings/altitude. Center on a single wall versus a corner and make it an outside wall to help prevent from other sources of radiation. We will try to do two floors to confirm that the altitude did not affect the numbers. 2. Thickness of walls - we are going to have to assume due to that buildings have similar depth but we won't be able to measure 3. Sources of concrete - we will need to assume that the sources are similar for buildings built around the same time but can't be sure of this without records of suppliers of concrete. Different sources may use different formulations of concrete with different amount of potassium in the mix. 4. Orientation of detector: We are setting it vertical so majority of rays are coming in from wall rather than from directly above due to cosmic rays. 5. References for amount of radiation due to concrete: PBS site refers to 70 microsieverts per year and and the normal amount annually is approximately 3.65 millisievert so the dose is relatively low. (1 sievert = 100 rem which are both measurement units) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/how-much-radiation-is-too-much-a-handy-guide/8124/ 6. What type of detector we are using and will it be able to detect beta decay. These cosmic detectors where built mainly for cosmic rays and not beta decay but research said that scintillators should pick up beta decay also. 7. Take a measurement away from concrete walls like in middle of the football field or field outside of campus.
Dr. Loh Talk - Soar Telescope soar_telescope.docx
