A Flexible Positron Spectrometer for the Undergraduate Laboratory

Abstract

Positron physics touches on a wide-ranging variety of fields from materials science to medical imaging to high energy physics. In this paper we present the development of a flexible positron annihilation spectrometer appropriate for the undergraduate laboratory. Four NaI gamma-ray ($\gamma$-ray) detectors are connected to an oscilloscope-based data acquisition system. Coupled with the software we developed, these detectors allow students to explore a variety of positron and $\gamma$-ray phenomena. These include $\gamma$-ray energy spectroscopy, Compton scattering, PET scanning fundamentals, speed of light measurements with $\gamma$-rays, historically important polarimetry of annihilation radiation, 3-$\gamma$ annihilation radiation observations, and positron lifetime spectroscopy of materials. We present the developed apparatus and examples of experiments it can perform here.

arXiv comment10 pages, 19 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Observation of triple-photon decay in positron-electron pair annihilation: a triple coincidence setup for the undergraduate laboratory