O2-6: Measurement of g factor for Cosmic Ray Muons

Abraham Holtermann
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The measurement of the muon ”g factor” has recently occupied significant interest for high energy physicists, and high profile
experiments to accurately measure this factor with precision have been conducted at Brookhaven, and Fermilab, among other
sites. It is well documented that the spin axis of fermions will precess upon exposure to an external magnetic field, with a
frequency determined by the equation below. This is called Larmor precession:
geB
ωs = 2mc
The Muon ”g” factor was predicted to be 2 by Paul Dirac’s formulation of Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, but many
supersymmetry theories predict small corrections to this number. In this lab, we use an apparatus to capture and measure the
asymmetries in muon decay direction over time inside of a magnetic field to estimate the Larmor precession frequency ω, and
thus, come up with an approximate measurement of g
The main source of Muons for this lab was cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are cascades of particles created by the interaction
between high energy protons generated by remote cosmic phenomena, with the relative abundance of molecules in Earth’s
atmosphere. Collisions with these nuclei often result in the subsequent production of pions, which decay into muons. Muons
with sufficient energy will last long enough to penetrate to ground level before decaying.
Our setup measures the entrance and exit of cosmic ray muons with scintillating detectors on the top and bottom. Interme-
diate stacks of photomultiplier tubes comprise the main detectors, and are placed between layers of graphite, surrounded by
a 50G magnetic field. These stacks are placed closely enough to detect electrons and photons produced during the capture of
muons in the various layers of graphite. For muons undergoing Larmor precession, we expect the decay direction to oscillate
as a function of the muon’s lifetime.

To calculate the frequency of Larmor precession, we obtain the number of muon decays in the top and bottom stacks, and
look for an oscillating pattern in the total difference between top and bottom counts as a function of lifetime. Since some
detectors were significanty more efficient and sensitive than others, we were unable to extract a simple oscillation, but were
nonetheless able to discern some periodic behavior.
We fit this plot with a dampened sinusoid with a linear correction term for the detector asymmetry:
Ae− ct sin(Bt + C) − Dt + E
Our fit allowed us to procure a value of g = 1.5358 ± .0733 ± .0046 Where .0733 represents the statistical uncertainty derived
from the fitting procedure, and .0046 is the systematic uncertainty derived from variations in our measurements of the magnetic
field.
[1] Herzog, David (2019) ”Cosmic Ray Muons Laboratory”
[2] Amato, Alex (2018) ”Physics with Muons: From Atomic Physics to Solid State Physics”
[3] D.B. Chitwood et. al. ”Improved Measurement of the Positive-Muon Lifetime and Determination of the Fermi
Constant”