This study analyzed data from a detector that measured cosmic ray muons to determine their lifetime. The researcher used Matlab to draw a histogram of the data and fit an exponential decay curve to calculate the lifetime. The curve had a slope that corresponded to a lifetime of 2.63 microseconds, consistent with known literature values for the muon lifetime.

1. Study of Life Time of Muons
Author: Frank
Researcher: Frank Nati

2. Data Source
• Detector ID 6818 from Gleenbrook North
High School.
• Data: Sep 19th 2015

3. Verification Steps

4. Theoretical Ananysis
• Equation for decay:
• Cosmicray e-lab program:
x-axis: t y-axis: dN/dt
Take the differential form:
0
t
NdN
e
dt


 

0
t
N N e




5. Cosmicray e-lab result

6. Revision---Matlab
• Input data into Excel then into Matlab

7. Revision---Matlab
• Draw a histogram

8. Revision---Matlab
• Draw best-fitting line---change equations
• Define y= , then , we take ln
on both sides:
dN
dt
0
t
N
y e


 

0 1
ln ln( ) *
N
y t  
 

9. Revision---Matlab
Y=-0.38*x+2.7

10. Calculation
• = -0.38
• = 2.63 μs
1




11. Verification
• Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon

12. • Thank you!