colin.mcenroe
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Hello all,
I apologize if this is posted in the incorrect forum. I started working on a summer research project today and it is a part of the STAR experiment. Well, I am a fourth year undergrad (though I am slow by one year) and I am really in over my head here. The professor gave me an another fellow undergrad a text called Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions and set us loose with it. He wants us to use it to learn all about kinematics and such, and I am totally lost because this book seems aimed at graduate level students. He gave us three exercises to work out, but neither my associate nor I were able to complete them. I hope this doesn't violate any rules, but I would like your advice on how to tackle the following problem:
For fixed target experiments, given a kinetic energy of the beam, calculate the beam energy and momentum in the laboratory frame, the rapidity covered in the lab, yproj − ytarg, the center-of-mass rapidity, the velocity of the beam in the laboratory frame, √ S, Ecm, pcm, and the velocity of the beam in the center-of-mass frame. Write the expression used to calculate each quantity. Assume pp interactions with a proton mass of 0.938272 GeV. The velocities should be in c = 1 units so that v ≡ β. The values of Eare 10, 100 and 500 MeV, 1, 2, 10, 14, 60, 160 and 200 GeV.
Now I am stuck on the very first calculation, the beam energy and momentum but I am too embarrassed to ask my professor for help on this stuff because he said it would be really easy. Thanks for your advice!
Colin
I apologize if this is posted in the incorrect forum. I started working on a summer research project today and it is a part of the STAR experiment. Well, I am a fourth year undergrad (though I am slow by one year) and I am really in over my head here. The professor gave me an another fellow undergrad a text called Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions and set us loose with it. He wants us to use it to learn all about kinematics and such, and I am totally lost because this book seems aimed at graduate level students. He gave us three exercises to work out, but neither my associate nor I were able to complete them. I hope this doesn't violate any rules, but I would like your advice on how to tackle the following problem:
For fixed target experiments, given a kinetic energy of the beam, calculate the beam energy and momentum in the laboratory frame, the rapidity covered in the lab, yproj − ytarg, the center-of-mass rapidity, the velocity of the beam in the laboratory frame, √ S, Ecm, pcm, and the velocity of the beam in the center-of-mass frame. Write the expression used to calculate each quantity. Assume pp interactions with a proton mass of 0.938272 GeV. The velocities should be in c = 1 units so that v ≡ β. The values of Eare 10, 100 and 500 MeV, 1, 2, 10, 14, 60, 160 and 200 GeV.
Now I am stuck on the very first calculation, the beam energy and momentum but I am too embarrassed to ask my professor for help on this stuff because he said it would be really easy. Thanks for your advice!
Colin
