Version 3 as of February 27, 2013 Primary author: Joshua C.

Frechem

The Eect of Absorber Thickness on the Range of Beta Particles and the Determination of the Linear Absorption Coecient of Gamma Particles
(Dated: February 27, 2013) With the use of a Geiger counter, the rst step was to determine the high voltage variations by taking data for intervals of 10 Volts and setting the device voltage to the voltage where the counts per second begin to plateau. The range of Beta particles decaying from Strontium-90 to Zirconium-90 was determined by adding sheets of Aluminum foil of known thicknesses between the source and the detector and measuring at 1-second intervals for two sets of 120 seconds to yield 240 data points for each thickness of foil added. A curve was generated in which the range is found through interpretation and in turn calculate energy using the determined range. To determine the decay energy of Gamma particles from Cesium-137 to Barium-137, Lead absorbers were used rather than Aluminum foil. However, rather than nding the range, the goal was to nd the slope of the graph of the natural log of the counts per second vs. the thickness of the absorbers. This slope is the linear absorption coecient which was then used to graphically determine the energy level of the decay process.

INTRODUCTION

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND PROCEDURE

All atoms heavier than Lead have a tendency to decay in order to obtain a more stable nucleus. These atoms can decay and release an Alpha, Beta, or Gamma particle or depending on the decay process, all three. Alpha decay happens spontaneously while Beta decay requires there be more neutrons than can be handled in which it releases an electron (or positron in some other cases). Gamma particles are released after Alpha or Beta decay if these decays leave the nucleus in an excited state. This photon (Gamma) emission happens nearly instantaneously after primary decay. In Beta decay, the released electron loses energy through the matter it travels (in this case Aluminum). This range of the electron is found experimentally by graphically analyzing data. This range is then used to determine the energy of the electron in this state. In Gamma decay, decay occurs through three processes: Compton Scattering, the Photoelectric Eect and Pair Production. Pair production only occurs if the photon has energy higher than 1.02 MeV so using the source in this experiment it is assumed that no pair production takes place. Therefore, the total linear absorption coecient (), or the slope of the graph ln(counts per second) vs. thickness(cm), is the total probability of decay by only Compton Scattering and the Photoelectric Eect.[1] The results of this experiment have amazing applications in the eld of Medicine (cancer treatment) and of course Physics and the search for the Grand Unied Theory. The only reason the Grand Unied Theory is remotely within grasp is solely due to the discoveries found through means of similar experiments such as this. Theoretical physicists such as Einstein, Fermi, Feynman and every single string theorist used even smaller, quantummechanical versions of these results in all of their theories and equations.

The rst step in this experiment was to gure out what voltage will be used throughout the experiment. The number of counts per second plateaus once a certain voltage is reached and to go further than the beginning of this plateau causes high voltage variations. After placing the Beta source under the detector, the voltage was changed in intervals of 25 Volts until activity was recorded in which the voltage interval was changed to 10. After taking 120-1 second data collections, an average was taken for every voltage and plotted on a graph to determine the operating voltage. Once the operating voltage was set, the source had to be removed to measure the background radiation to know the bias of the data. The average of all the background radiation, including statistical error, was taken and plotted. For all data collection, the average was taken to 1 decimal place and statistical error was calculated using the Gaussian stan dard deviation N . This equation gives the percent error of the average calculated. Then, the Strontium-90 Beta source was placed under the counter and two sets of 120-1 second acquisitions were taken for an array of Aluminum foil absorber thicknesses. The foil was placed under the detector in groups of 5 with the thickness accurately measured using a caliper to the nearest thousandth of a millimeter and averaged to get a consistent thickness. 18 thicknesses were used until the count matched that of the background count. In order to determine the range of the Beta particles, the natural logarithm was taken of the averages and the propagated errors and graphed as a function of absorber thickness in centimeters. The thickness at which the counts equal that of the background is the range of the Beta Particles. By using equation 1: 2 (1) r = 0.412g/cm (E)1.29 where is the density of Aluminum (2.702g/cm3 ), r is the range in cm that was graphically determined using

2 the data, and E is the energy of the electron. After completion of data recording for Beta decay, the background radiation was again recorded and averaged, with error, for the data of Gamma decay. The Strontium-90 source was replaced with Cesium-137 and Lead absorbers were used in place of Aluminum foil absorbers due to the energy increase when going from Beta to Gamma particles. Equal area lead absorbers were used to keep Gamma scattering as consistent as possible throughout the trials. Data was taken using 9 absorber thicknesses taking 200-1 second acquisitions and averaging the number of counts using the Gaussian deviation noted above. The thicknesses were measured with an accuracy of one- thousandth of a millimeter as before using the same caliper. The averaged data was then graphed using the natural log of the averaged data vs. the Lead absorber thickness in centimeters. A linear regression was used to nd the slope of this graph, which is , in units of one per centimeter. This Linear Absorption Coecient was then used to graphically determine the energy of the Gamma particles using Figure 6 in the Columbia University Lab 2-10.[1] the expected value so there would always have been an error. Table 2 shows the Gamma decay data. The values shown are the averaged values for each thickness due to a large number of data points. The errors for Gamma decay were much larger than Beta decay due to scattering and the fact that in order to get the counter to count a Gamma particle, the particle interacts with the gas inside the counter releasing an electron which in turn also set o the counter. This caused less reliable results for the counts per second for Gamma decay thus larger errors. Figure 3 shows the natural log of the counts per second as a function of the Lead absorber thickness as well as the error graphs and all of the regression lines with equations. The Linear Absorption Coecients () were represented by the slopes of these lines and the was determined by these equations as 1. The values for were kept to one decimal place to stay with two signicant digits of the count rate averages. This experiment yielded a Linear Absorption Coecient of = 1.2+0.2 cm1 . Using Fig0.3 ure 6 in the Columbia University Lab 2-10, the values graphically gave energy values of E = 0.7+0.2 MeV. The 0.1 expected values for the energy for Gamma decay from Cesium-137 was given as E = .662MeV which t the experimental E value well within the error limits at an average error of only 5.7%. This was the lowest possible error for the experiment using this method because the precision was not ne enough to match the expected value any closer than it did.[2]

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

After collecting data to nd out the optimal operating voltage, the graph (as seen in Figure 1) shows a denite plateau in which the approximate median counts per second of the plateau was used to nd the closest data point on the curve to the beginning of the plateau with that median value. The value determined was 380 volts but due to high voltage uctuations from heat, the voltage used ended up being 385 volts. There were 3960 data points for the Beta decay section of the lab so shown in Table 1 is the average of counts per second for each absorber thickness along with calculations for the natural log and the errors. Errors in the thickness were so small due to precision of the caliper used that they were negligible with respect to the graph scale. The equation of the regression line was used to calculate the x value (thickness or the range) at the value of the background radiation. This range is graphically show in Figure 2 where the data meets the background radiation value. This value was determined to be 0.37 0.05 centimeters. By using these values for the range, the energy level of the electrons (Beta particles) was found to be E = 2.00.2 MeV. The energy calculation was kept to one decimal place to keep consistent with signicant gures in the calculation of energy using are in Equation 1 above. The expected value for this decay was E= 2.26MeV which was nearly one deviation away from the experimental value (11.5% mean error from expected and 2.7% error at one deviation from the experimental value).[2] However close the result may or may not have been though, the experimental procedure used did not have the accuracy to match

CONCLUSION

Experimentally determining the range of a Beta particle and the Linear Absorption Coecient of a Gamma particle can fairly easily be done with a decent amount of precision. However, accuracy is a much more dicult story. Through this lab, good results were achieved with fairly accurate results and moderate precision from many trials. Having only an 11.5% error and 2.7% error at maximum error range for the Beta particle energy was o possibly because our data consistently trended too low and more precise data readings would be needed with more trials to get a more accurate energy level. With an error of 5.7%, the Gamma energy was as close as the precision in this procedure would allow. More precise data readings would be necessary along with more trials to get a more precise reading to compare to the expected. Another x to a large source of error would be to be able to set an exact voltage because the voltage being used to operate the Geiger counter would uctuate causing further error.

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Absorber Absorber Counts ln(counts Propagated Thickness Thickness Per per Error Error (inches) (cm) Second Second) Noise 0.3 -1.1 0.5 0.9 0.0000 0.000 2.6 0.9 1.3 0.4 0.0635 0.014 2.4 0.9 1.2 0.4 0.1270 0.030 2.1 0.8 1.2 0.5 0.1900 0.043 1.7 0.5 1.1 0.5 0.2525 0.056 1.4 0.4 1.0 0.5 0.3160 0.069 1.1 0.1 0.8 0.5 0.3840 0.083 1.1 0.1 0.8 0.6 0.4185 0.098 0.8 -0.3 0.7 0.7 0.4560 0.113 0.7 -0.3 0.7 0.7 0.4910 0.126 0.7 -0.4 0.7 0.7 TABLE II: This table shows the Gamma decay data with all error and natural log calculations with the accuracy kept to one decimal place due to the counts rate being two signicant gures.

[1] Equation and Lab reference: Columbia University, Dept. of Physics, Experiment 210 Absorption of Beta and Gamma Rays, (version 10), http://www.columbia.edu/cu/physics/pdf-files/ Lab_2-10.pdf [2] Expected Values: Keele University, Dept. of Physics, Experiment A, (Unpublished), http://spc4.phys.keele.ac.uk/phy-10018/ pdfs/ExptA.pdf Absorber Absorber Counts ln(counts Propagated Thickness Thickness Per per Error Error (inches) (cm) Second Second) Noise 0.2 -1.6 0.1 0.5 0.0000 0.000 8.3 2.1 0.0 0.0 0.0055 0.014 6.6 1.9 0.0 0.0 0.0120 0.030 5.9 1.8 0.0 0.0 0.0170 0.043 5.6 1.7 0.1 0.0 0.0220 0.056 5.2 1.6 0.0 0.0 0.0270 0.069 4.2 1.5 0.0 0.0 0.0325 0.083 4.2 1.4 0.1 0.0 0.0385 0.098 3.1 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.0445 0.113 2.6 1.0 0.1 0.0 0.0495 0.126 2.4 0.9 0.1 0.1 0.0540 0.137 2.2 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0605 0.154 1.7 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0665 0.169 1.6 0.5 0.1 0.1 0.0720 0.183 1.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0890 0.226 0.8 -0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1055 0.268 0.5 -0.7 0.1 0.2 0.1222 0.310 0.4 -0.9 0.0 0.0 0.1420 0.361 0.2 -1.6 0.0 0.2 TABLE I: This table holds the data for Beta decay counts per second as a function of absorber thickness with errors and natural log calculations. All values were kept to one decimal place due to counts per second being two signicant gures.

FIG. 1: This graph represents the data recorded in the rst step of the experiment to determine the ideal operating voltage to best reduce high voltage variations. The closest median value of the plateau to the beginning of the plateau was used as the operating voltage. This voltage ended up being 385 Volts.

FIG. 2: This graph shows the Beta decay data with the small error bars due to a large number of data points increasing accuracy. The regression line is the ln(counts per second) as a function Aluminum absorber thickness in cm and meets the background radiation value at the range of the Beta particle.

FIG. 3: This graph shows the Gamma decay data with larger error bars due to less data points and larger deviations in the data itself. The green plots are the data points plus and minus the error with linear regression lines as with the averaged data. These lines are ln(counts per second) as a function of Lead absorber thickness in cm.