The Speed and Decay of Cosmic-Ray Muons: Experiments in the Relativistic Kinematics of the Universal Speed Limit and Time Dilation

The Speed and Decay of Cosmic-Ray Muons: Experiments in Relativistic Kinematics - The Universal Speed Limit and Time Dilation

The Speed and Decay of Cosmic-Ray Muons: Experiments in the Relativistic Kinematics of the Universal Speed Limit and Time Dilation

1. According to classical mechanics the speed of a particle is proportional to the square root of its kinetic energy. Since there is no limit, in principle, on the kinetic energy of a body, there is no classical speed limit. According to the theory of relativity there is a speed limit. In the first of these experiments you will measure the velocity distribution of high energy muons that are gen...

The Speed and Decay of Cosmic-Ray Muons: Experiments in Relativistic Kinematics - The Universal Speed Limit and Time Dilation

2. Derive from the Lorentz transformation equations an expression for the mean life measured in the laboratory of unstable particles of a given kind traveling with kinetic energy K if their rest mass is m0 and their mean life at rest is τ0 . Assuming that the most likely momentum for the muon is approximately 1GeV/c (see Appendix C), calculate β, γ and the flight time for a trip of 3 meters (ap...

Physics of Muons

Similar to the electron, the muon is an elementary particle classified as a lepton with a negative charge and half-spin. Naturally-occurring muons are created due to cosmic rays and travel at relativistic speeds and thus feel the effects of time dilation. Due to this the lifetime of the muon is heavily dependent on the speed at which it is moving. We will discuss the lifetime and decay of the m...

Time Delays in Cosmic Ray Propagation

Cosmic Rays (CR) travel at speeds essentially indistinguishable from the speed of light. However whilst travelling through magnetic fields, both regular and turbulent, they are delayed behind the light since they are usually charged particles and their paths are not linear. Those delays can be so long that they are an impediment to correctly identifying sources which may be variable in time. Fu...