PHYSICS LABORATORY III A
To understand the topics of the course and to perform the practical activities, students are required to:
- know the error theory
- have a basic knowledge of English to understand the bibliography they will be given
These competences have been developed in the courses attended before this lab course.
The assessment requires several steps:
- the laboratory reports: students have to deliver reports that are corrected by the teacher; corrections and modifications have to be implemented. The lab reports are pre-filled as far as the introduction, the setup and measurements description are concerned; moreover the aspects that have to be studied and commented by the students are indicated. Each report has to be delivered within one month from the data taking
- the presentation of a modern physics experiment (module 1): each group presents to the other students the chosen experiment, the experimental setup, the data analysis and the obtained results, underlining the critical elements met during the experiment execution and proposing possible solutions
- the final examination is an oral exam that can be taken only after having completed the lab reports (module 1 and module 2) and having presented the modern physics (module 1) experiment. The oral exam starts with a topic chosen by the student and presented at the blackboard; the teacher asks then questions on all the topics treated during the course. The final examination intends to verify:
- the knowledge of:
** (module 1) the fundamental components of analog electronics and the way they can be combined to develop circuits with a given goal (filters, amplifiers, differentiators, integrators, etc)
** (module 2) the concepts of radiation-matter interaction, of the working principles of detectors, of the features of the experimental setups used during the lab sessions and the way data have been acquired
- the capability of analyzing:
** (module 1) the proposed circuit, its performance and its limits
** (module 2) the detector performance and how this performance can provide info on the radiation source
- the correct use of the technical language to explain the measurement setup, the data analysis and the obtained results.
To pass the exam, the student has to present the topic he/she has chosen in a satisfactory way, with an adequate language, demonstrating a satisfactory understanding of the basic circuits of the analog electronics and of their performance (module 1), of the radiation-matter interaction, the detectors features and the info these detectors supply (module 2).
To successfully pass the exam, the student has to demonstrate the knowledge of all the topics treated during the course and of the experimental measurements he/she has performed. Moreover he/she has to describe these elements with a good technical language.
Full marks with laude are assigned to students that have delivered very good lab reports, present the chosen topic in a very good way and demonstrate to be able to re-elaborate the concepts treated in the course both to define the components to choose for a given electronic circuit or for a specific experimental measurement, indicating pros and cons of the choice, and to justify the experimental choice that he/she is presented with identifying the reasons that led to such a choice.
At the end of the first semester, students may take the exam for the Modern Physics Laboratory; at the end of the second semester, they will be allowed to complete the course assessment taking the exam for the Subnuclear Physics Laboratory.
The course is divided into two modules: Modern Physics Laboratory (module 1) and Subnuclear Physics Laboratory (module 2).
The goal of the course is to provide students with the fundamental elements to interpret and understand the interaction of radiation with matter and the key features of the systems that allow to “read” the effects of such an interaction and to describe the phenomenon that has generated the radiation itself.
Going into details, the course will provide students with the instruments to understand and explain:
- module 1: basic components of analog electronics and their use in the fundamental circuits developed to detect the effects of the interaction of radiation with matter
- module 2: the interaction of nuclear and subnuclear radiation (photons with energies in the keV – MeV range and charged particles) with matter, the methods that allow to detect and measure such radiation and how these measurements can be used to describe the radiation source itself.
The course completes the knowledge acquired at the theoretical level during the bachelor studies; it analyzes the key features of radiation-matter interaction, of electronic circuits and particle detectors and allows to perform experimental measurements typical of several physics applications.
The course is of interest in particular to students that would like to go on with an education in particle physics, applied physics (medical physics and environmental physics) and experimental space physics. Moreover it can be of interest to students that want to apply experimentally what studied theoretically and to those who want to acquire data analysis and advanced ICT competences.
At the end of the course, the students will be able to:
- explain the working principles of basic circuits in analog electronics, describing the features of each component and its limits
- describe the interaction of radiation with matter both in the reference experiments of the passage from classic physics to modern physics and in the experiments of the nuclear and subnuclear physics field
- analyze critically the info that the detectors are able to provide on the radiation source depending on the radiation they detect
- choose the best detector to measure a given type of radiation, underlining limits and strengths
- analyze the data collected in the lab with different setups and perform experimental measurement in particle physics characterizing the behaviour of radiation sources and detectors.
Modules
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Credits: 6
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Credits: 6