Muon and Scintillator

Submarine

Hi everybody,

I am trying to set up a lab experiment on muon detection and determination of its decay time.

I know that when a muon first reaches the scintillator it slows down because of ionization and atomic excitation of solvent molecules. The deposited energy is transferred to the fluor molecules (of the scintillator matter) whose electrons are promoted to excited states. The electrons then start emitting light. This is the first event of scintillation.

After that muon decays into an electron, a neutrino and an anti-neutrino. This electron then produces scintillator light again. The question is by what means, how does it make the scintillator to emit light? Is that because the electrons move at high speed and lose its kinetic energy in the same way as muon did?

Simon Bridge

Welcome to PF;
Imagine you could "inject" a slow electron into the crystal somehow ... what do you think it would do?

You can check your idea BTW: how much energy is released in the beta decay of a stationary muon?