Particle Physics, Exams of Particle Physics

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PARTICLE PHYSICS IN

THE HIGH SCHOOL

CLASSROOM

Dr. Peter Dong, NBCT

Why particle physics?

 Nothing gets the attention of the public like particle physics  Practical advances in solid-state physics or material science rarely get the press coverage of particle physics  The New York Times published 119 articles related to the Higgs boson  Graphene, which might actually be useful, has only 33

Success stories

 Modern Physics offered at IMSA as a one-semester class  Students responded strongly:  “I had my mind blown every class”  “This is the most interesting class I’ve ever taken”  “ModPhys was the highlight of my day”  “Before this semester, I hated physics, but now, that hate has subsided and I actually find myself interested enough to pay attention, take notes, do my homework, and look up other resources in my free time.”  Three students said they decided to become physics majors because of this class

The problem

 Particle physics is typically taught to physics majors in their junior year – at the earliest  In the meantime, students study mechanics – arguably the least interesting part of the field of physics

An experiment

 Last semester in Modern Physics, we gave it a try:  Found a search for a hypothetical new particle  Split the analysis work into twenty parts (one per student)  Gave each student simulated data to work with  The output of one student’s project became the input to the next one

Overview of the project

 Chose a real theoretical about a particle that could be observed at the Large Hadron Collider  Student projects:  Decided what event signature to look for  Analyzed raw data from the detector to find objects  Identified objects as specific particles  Implemented cuts to remove background events  Estimated number of events expected  Used algorithm to separate signal from background  Performed statistical analysis to get result  Discussed physical implications of result

Individual component

 Each student did a short research report about their topic  Each student had a practice assignment and then a full experimental assignment  The practice was to prepare for the full assignment, and to allow (ideally) for feedback

Example: Silicon tracking

 The student got a list of coordinates that represent the positions of “hits” in the detector  Needed to reconstruct the tracks that particles left behind  Practice assignment tells students the particle before giving the list of points; the experimental part just gives a list of points

Example: Decision trees

 The student got a list of variables for simulated events of signal and background  The student’s job was to design a sorting algorithm (a decision tree) that separated signal from background

Decision tree

 Here is the decision tree the student made (by hand) using Excel to sort the events

The result

 Students put their project together into a presentation which they gave to a physicists at Fermilab  http://youtu.be/z3rXFfeyIzc  Very positive comments from students:  “Seeing the scientific process in action”  “Able to see particle physics actually being experimented and how it is done”  “Allowed me to relate what I learned somewhat to the real world”  “Required students to know all about their part in the project”  “Really taught me how much we had accomplished as a class”

Can this work at other schools?

 IMSA is an unusual environment, and Modern Physics is an unusual class  On the other hand, most teachers have high- achieving students who may be interested in this material  Could this be an individual project for an interested student, or a class activity for an advanced class?

The J/ψ particle

 Discovered in 1974  Confirmed the quark model of physics  Some historical details given in http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ph/ 9910468v1.pdf  If you have the right equipment, it is relatively easy to find

Project

 I have prepared a list of 2000 (simulated) events from a hadron fixed- target experiment  Each event identifies an electron-positron pair from an event and gives the energy and momentum of each  Looking at any of the variables does not reveal anything interesting