November+19-November+25

November 19
Today, we continued our manipulations of the excel spreadsheet. Our first task is to cut the data according to our previous studies to narrow our search for cosmic rays. Jason and I had both added a new column, Phi 1 + Phi 2, into our spreadsheets, so we decided to begin here. Any cosmic rays in this column should provide a value of around zero because the detector would read the single cosmic ray (traveling in a straight line) as two separate particles from the collision (particles 1 and 2 in columns phi 1 and 2, respectively). Their values should cancel each other out; one would be read as negative and the other positive. This differs from other particles in the collision because particles 1 and 2 typically scatter in a way that is not directly opposite the other. We made our first cut of the data based on the phi1+phi2 column, and we narrowed our paramaters to events with a value between -0.50 to 0.50.

Our next cut was based on mass. We resorted our newly cut set of data by mass (low to high). Based on our prior studies and observations in histograms and ManyEyes, we concluded that 40 GeV is the "magic number" for the mass of cosmic rays. We discussed this number with Dr. L to confirm our assumption. We cut the four values that fell into this new paramater as well.

We initially included the particle with the mass value of 39.6. We looked closer at its other data values to decipher whether or not it belonged.

When I looked at this particle's E sum/Mass value and phi1+phi2 value, I concluded that this particle does not belong. The (E1+E2)/M value of a cosmic ray should be close to 1 because at its level, its energy is equal to its mass. As discussed above, the phi1+phi2 value should be clse to 0. While both of the particle with a mass 39.6 GeV has values that are around 1 and 0 for (E1+E2)/M and phi1+phi2, respectively, it is a clear outlier among the other particles. Relatively, the values in these columns are significantly different for that particle than the others.

November 20
I decided to cut the data based on different parameters to see if I would be left with the same data points. My first step in this new trial is to sort by the (E1+E2)/M column and cut based on this data. I made the cut to include all particles that have a value between .9 and 1.4