1. Use a third counter so that your muon has to pass through all three counters. This will reduce the two-muon background noise due to the two counters being too far apart.





Notice: The width of the second distribution is wider because two muons can come at more horizontal angles. The two muons traveling at an angle in the second case are more horizontal than the "single muons" traveling at an angle in the first case.

2. Alternatively, to limit the two muon background, we can use a third counter that will not be fired by a muon passing through the original two counters, but background muons (from other directions) will hit.

3. Remember: Not all muons go exactly vertically. Those that travel at an angle travel a longer path. This is a systemic error that we should estimate. What are the effects of a longer path on muon travel time between counters 1 and 4?

Just get started! Clearly, we could keep improving our measurement by addressing each of these effects, but we should not be too concerned. Just get started. We can make a first measure of the muon speed by setting up the detectors in our first, best guess and see which of these effects we want to attack later to make our result more accurate.

Click on page 3 to see some results from three counter setup.

Tutorial Pages: 1 2 3 4 & Analysis