PHY-308 Assignment #2 Due date: Monday, 16 February 2004

1. Estimate the minimum proton beam energy (in GeV) in the laboratory frame to produ e a real
W boson in the rea tion, pp !
W , for the following 2 ases:
(a) In a xed target experiment (one proton at rest)
(b) In a olliding beam experiment (both protons with the same beam energy)
Use M = 80 GeV, and negle t everything else in the pro ess (the parti les from the \spe tator" quarks).
W

This is an example of why olliding beams are essential for dis overing new heavy parti les
(though a lot of other interesting and important physi s is done using xed targets !).

2. Des ribe in more detail than given in le ture the ele tron (and positron) beam produ tion and
hara teristi s at SLAC. That is, exa tly how are ele trons and positrons made to ollide at
around 45 GeV. Your explanation should take about 1 page. In lude any referen es you use. A
good starting point is: http://www2.sla .stanford.edu/vv /a elerator.html

3. (a) Des ribe brie y (about half a page) what dipole and quadrapole magnets are used for, and how
they work, in the operation of syn hrotrons.
(b) Show using a geometri al opti s analog, that in a given dire tion the sequential fo using and
defo using of the beam by quadrapole magnets results in a net fo using.

4. A parti ular event at a ollider experiment is observed to ontain 2 ele trons with the following
hara teristi s:
ele tron 1: E = 45:0 GeV,  = 1:2,  = 45Æ
T

ele tron 2: E = 50:0 GeV,  = 0:2,  = 300Æ

T

where E is the energy omponent in the transverse plane as shown below,  is the pseudorapidity,
T

and  is the angle in the transverse plane (azimuthal angle).

!
(a) Assuming these ele trons ome from the de ay of a heavy obje t, X 0 e+ e , al ulate the
invariant (rest) mass of X 0 , negle ting the mass of the ele trons.
(b) Given this invariant mass, and the assumption that the ele tons are de ay produ ts of a
parti le X 0 , what known obje t is X 0 most likely to be ?
( ) If the ele tron energies were measured in an ele tromagneti alorimeter where:

= p0 2 (not a parti ularly good alorimeter !),
E :
E E

and both the  's and 's were measured with 2% pre ision, estimate the resulting
un ertainty in the al ulated invariant mass.
y
y e1
x φ1
φ x
θ φ2
z
(beam direction)
e2
Transverse plane