Proton Accelerator
      

Finding Proton Momenta from Tracks in a Magnetic Field

       
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The image below shows the tracks of protons from a hypothetical beam test injected into a 3 Tesla magnetic field. Each colored track represents a beam of protons of a particular momentum.

  1. What do we need to know to find the momentum of the protons in a particular track?
  2. How do we find the information we need?
  3. Note: The equation of each circle is of the form (X-R)2 + Y2 = R2.
  4. Given the information, how do we calculate the momenta?
Click on the image for a landscape view more suitable for printing from your browser PRINT command.



To record data and do calculations, access either the Excel spreadsheet proton1 or the HTML data table proton2.

A quick link for those new to Excel.

  1. Do we know how we will go about filling in the blank columns in the spreadsheet?
  2. How are kinetic energy and rest energy related to the energy of a particle?
  3. Once the data is all filled in, what can we do to try to understand the relationship between energy E, momentum P, and mass (rest energy) M? Can we use Excel for this purpose?
  4. What is the exact mathematical relationship between E, P, and M?