Empirical Examination of QED via the Compton Effect

T.W.J. de Wild (S2961830) L. Grosse (S2983710)

University of Groningen
Abstract
This article describes an empirical examination Qauntum Electrodynamics (QED) by means of the
Compton effect (photon-electron scattering) [2,3]. In particular, the angular dependence of the electron
recoil energy and scattered photon energy will be tested. Furthermore, the differential cross section for
Compton scattering will be measured. These measurements can be compared directly to the predictions
of QED. The experiment consists of two independent approaches to determine the differential cross
section empirically. For both approaches, the results are found to be in agreement with the predictions
of QED.

1 Introduction Cross-Section.The main result QED provides for

Currently, Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) is the most Compton scattering is the differential cross section
accurate quantum field theory describing the interaction d/d, where d is the solid angle. To lowest order in
of matter and light [1]. The theory is known for the ex- QED, is given by the Klein-Nishina (KN) formula
[2,3]:
tremely accurate agreement between its predictions and
experiment, e.g. for quantities such as the anomalous d r02 2 0  
magnetic moment and the Lamb energy shift of Hydro- () () = 0 + 1 2
0 sin , (5)
d 2
gen.
2 2 0
In this experiment, the validity of QED will be exam- where r0 e /40 me c and 0 E /E .
ined via the Compton effect. The Compton effect refers For a single scattering process, is a measure for the
to the scattering of photons on electrons: chance that the photon is scattered into the solid angle
between and + d. However, in a typical practical
e + e0 + 0 , (1) setup, a beam of photons irradiates a solid with a high
electron density. In that case, is a measure for the
where the primes will denote final states of quantities.
number of photons (i.e. intensity) scattered between
From a theoretical perspective, the Compton effect is
and + d. That is () I(), where I is the inten-
well-studied in QED, with the Klein-Nishina cross sec-
sity as function of , to be extracted from experiment.
tion as main result [2]. From an experimental viewpoint,
For convenient comparison between theory (Eq. 5), both
the advantage of probing QED by means of Compton
and I() are normalized to their value at a specific
scattering is the fact that no high energy setup is re-
angle = c . The normalized cross section and inten-
quired: the scattering can be studied at moderate ener-
sity are then equal, since the (unknown) proportionality
gies of the order 100 keV [3].
constant cancels out:
2 Kinematics and Cross-Section () I()
= . (6)
(c ) I(c )
Kinematics.On account of energy and momentum con-
servation, the energy of the incoming photon E can be The above equation provides the essential connection be-
related to the energy of the scattered photon E0 . In par- tween theory and experiment.
ticular, E0 is a function of E and the deflection angle
[3]: 3 Experimental Aim and Setup
E The aim of the experiment is to measure (a) the energy
E0 (E , ) = , (2)
1 + E /me (1 cos ) of the scattered photons and recoil electrons as function
of and (b) the angular dependence of the normalized
where me 511 keV is the electron rest mass (in units differential cross section for Compton scattering. Sub-
with c 1). The electron recoil energy Ee is given by sequently, the obtained results will be compared to the
the difference between initial and final photon energy: theory (Eqs. 2, 3 and 5, respectively). To this end, two
0
Ee (E , ) = E E (E , ), (3) experimental approaches will be taken [3].
Approach 1.The first approach only utilizes measure-
where Eq. 2 gives E0 . Rewriting Eq. 2 in the form ment data of the scattered photons to determine the an-
1/E0 1/E gives: gular dependence of E0 and the normalized cross sec-
1 1 1 tion. In the setup, 661.7 keV photons emitted by a 137 Cs
= (1 cos ). (4) source irradiate a bar shaped target sample. Subse-
E0 E me
quently, the scattered photons are detected by NaI scin-
This relationship will be used to test the calibration of tillation detector. The detector possesses rotational free-
the detectors employed in the experiment setup. dom around the target sample, so that the photons can

1
 3. Experimental Aim and Setup 2

be detected conveniently as function of scattering angle
. The output detection signal of the detector is first am-
plified by an Ortec 590 A amplifier before the resulting
spectra are visualized on a pulse height analyser (PHA).
The used PHA is a Rigol DS1000 Digital Oscilloscope.
For more details on the experimental setup, see the man-
ual in Ref. [3].
To calibrate the PHA, weak 241 Am and 137 Cs sources
are used. The PHA is adjusted to 512 channels per
spectrum and the amplification factor is set such that
661.7 keV peak of the 137 Cs source is located between
pulses that are interpreted by the circuit as correlated,
the data will corrected for accidental counting rate Nacc
[3]:
Nacc = 2 NA NB , (8)
where is the pulse width, NA and NB are the count-
ing rates of detector A and B, respectively. The product
NA NB is measured to be approximately 398 kHz2 , which
gives Nacc = 0.398 Hz.
2

()/ (40 )
channel numbers 400 and 450. To verify the low energy
(low channel number) sensitivity of the setup, visibility
of the 241 Am photopeak and 137 Cs Rontgen peak is as-
sured. 1
Photon spectra are recorded at deflection angles
ranging from 30 to 130 . From the spectra, the energy
of scattered photons at the considered angle is extracted 0
by determination of the peak location. Furthermore, the 102
intensity I() is deduced from the spectra by calcula-
4
tion of the spectrum content (area) starting just above
the noise region and ending beyond the photopeak. To
account for the presence of background radiation, back- Ee (keV)
ground spectra are recorded without target sample and 2
these spectra are subtracted from the raw spectra.
Lastly, the detector loses part of its sensitivity at
high energies, resulting in a systematic underestimation
of the actual intensity. To account for this effect, the 0
determined spectra contents are divided by a relative 102
6
energy-dependent sensitivity factor f (E0 ):
E0 (keV)

f (E0 ) = E0 2 E0 + , (7)
4
where f is normalized to unity at 100 keV. The val-
ues of the polynomial parameters are = 4.5833 107 ,
= 9.9629 104 and = 1.1015. The fit is obtained by 2
interpolation of data in Ref. [3].
Approach 2.The second approach employs knowledge 0 50 100 150
of the electron spectra. to record the electron spectra,
103
the target sample is replaced by another NaI detector 4
(called detector A), in which the Compton scattering
1/E0 1/E (keV1 )

occurs. The recoil electrons cannot leave detector A and 3

hence their energy spectrum is recorded by this detector.
However, contrary to the electrons, a significant number
of the scattered photons is able to leave detector A and
can be detected by the rotatable detector (called B).
Note that all recoil electrons, i.e. independent of the
direction of the corresponding scattered photons, con-
tribute to the energy spectrum recorded by detector A.
Therefore, the complete electron spectrum is of no rele-
vance, only the part corresponding to the photon spec-
trum recorded by detector B at angle is relevant. To ex-
tract only the part of the electron spectrum correspond-
ing to the photons detected at angle , a so-called coinci-
dence circuit is used. Such a circuit converts each count
(detection of one electron or photon) into a block pulse
with a temporal width of ' 500 ns. In case two pulses
coming from detector A and B (partially) overlap, the
signal from A is allowed to pass the coincidence circuit
and will contribute to the recorded electron spectrum.
To account for accidental coincidences, i.e. uncorrelated
2
1
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
1 cos
Figure 1: Graphical representation of the obtained
results. The red and blue data are obtained via ap-
proach 1 and 2, respectively. The different panels
are further explained in the text.
As in the first approach, the spectra are recorded at
deflection angles ranging from 30 to 130 , but now for
the recoil electrons. From the spectra, the energy of the
recoil electrons are determined as function of . Further-
more, the intensity I() is once again deduced, in this
3

case for the electrons. In the intensity determination, coincides with the theoretical curves in both approaches.
the influence of background radiation is taken into ac- There is no significant difference between approach one
count as well the occurrence of accidental counts. Since and two in terms of agreement with theory (black solid
the electron cross section is significantly larger than the curve).
photon cross section, the electrons will deposit their re- Although the experimental values agree with the the-
coil energy in detector A. Hence, the intensities of the ory within error bounds, future improvements to the per-
electron spectra do not require a correction. formed experiment could be made. To this end, two sug-
gestions for improvement are in order. First, the accu-
4 Results and Discussion racy of the experiment may be improved by elongation of
the life time, i.e. the timespan during which the spectra
The results of both approach one and two are shown in
are recorded. This would increase the statistical accu-
Fig 1. The black solid lines correspond to theoretical
racy of the determined energies and intensities from the
curves and colored data-points are values obtained via
photopeaks.
experiment: the red and blue points are obtained by ap-
A second improvement that could be considered con-
proach one and two, respectively. The different panels in
cerns the fact that the scattered photons travel over
the figure will be discussed separately below. The lower
a small but non-negligible distance from the scattering
panel is referred to as panel one, the upper as panel four.
point to the detector (B). Over this distance, the pho-
The second panel shows the angular dependence of
tons will interact with the traversed medium (air) and
E0 . As can be seen, the experimental data from the
hence they will lose some energy. Therefore, the detected
first approach (red) coincides, within the estimated er-
photons will systematically have a (slightly) smaller en-
ror margin of 10 keV, with the theoretical curve given
ergy compared to the theoretical prediction of Eq. 2.
by Eq. 2 (solid black curve). The photon energies are
In the current experiment, this effect is assumed to be
determined from the spectra recorded at different angels
vanishingly small. In a future repetition of the experi-
between 30 and 130 , during a lifetime (recording time)
ment, the effect could be taken into account to examine
of 5 minutes.
its influence.
The third panel is analogous to the second, but now
the angular dependence of the recoil electron energy Ee
is shown, as obtained via approach two. In this case, the 5 Conclusion
experimental values with are also in reasonable agree- In the described experiment, Quantum Electrodynamics
ment with the theoretical curve (Eq. 3). The estimated is probed via the Compton effect. In particular, the an-
electron energy error is 15 keV. This estimated error gular dependence of the recoil electron energy, the scat-
is slightly higher compared to the case of photons, since tered photon energy and the differential cross section
the photopeak from which the electron energy is deter- (KN equation) as predicted by QED are experimentally
mined was broader, yielding a less accurate estimation tested. The experiment consists of two different and
of the peak energy. In the second approach, the lifetime independent approaches. The first approach focusses
was 7.5 minutes. on the energy characteristics of the scattered photons,
Using the energy data, the energy calibration of the whereas the second approach focusses on the recoil elec-
detectors is checked via verification of the electron masstrons. Both approaches independently allow the empiri-
me . In the first panel, Eq. 4 is plotted and compared cal determination of the normalized cross section, which
to the data. The shown error bars are obtained via er- is then compared to the KN equation.
ror propagation analysis and originate from the error in Taking the estimated error margins into account, the
measurements of E0 and Ee (10 keV and 15 keV re- emperical results deduced from the performed experi-
spectively). Using fitting software, the reciprocals of the
ment are in agreement with the theory, as can be seen in
slopes are found to be: Fig. 1. To examine the validity of the obtained results,
me = 534.9 28.7 keV, (Approach 1)
the calibration of the setup is checked via determina-
tion of the electron mass. The deduced values deviate
me = 528.6 26.3 keV, (Approach 2) (9) only 4.5% and 3.3% from the currently accepted value of
which agree within error bounds with the accepted elec- me for the first and second approach, respectively. This
tron mass of 511 keV. The agreement suggests that the increases the validity of the obtained results. In con-
detectors are calibrated properly. clusion, the experimental results confirm the theoretical
Lastly, the fourth panel shows the comparison of the predictions QED provides for the Compton effect.
normalized differential cross section with experiment us-
ing Eq. 6. The normalization angle c is set to be 40 . 6 References
The area under the photo-peak is taken to be the mea- 1. Feynman, R.P., 1949. Space-time approach to quan-
sure for the intensity I, which is proportional to . tum electrodynamics. Physical Review, 76(6), p.769.
The intensities extracted from the photon spectra in ap-
proach one (red) are corrected for background radiation 2. Millar, D., 2014. A Calculation of the Differen-
as well as the energy-dependent sensitivity of the de- tial Cross Section for Compton Scattering in 3-Level
tector (Eq. 7). The intensities deduced from the elec- QED. (Note: for pdf-file, click on title.)
tron spectra are corrected for background and accidental
3. Unknown, 2015. Manual: The Compton Effect. RUG
counts via Nacc (Eq. 8). Observe that, within the error
Phys. Lab. 3 Course Material.
margins, shows that the measured normalized intensity