BaBar Particle Physics Teaching Package

by Heather Lang and David Kirk

(c) Manchester University Department of Physics and Astrophysics

Homepage Latest News 04/07/02 : OK, well, the department decided to make another undergraduate lab project that involved porting our code to Java and running the program in a web browser, getting around the installation problems etc etc. This was done by Josey Allnutt and David Henley. You can find this (superior) implementation at Manchester University's High Energy Physics website. 10/01/00 It's not clear how the project will develop over the next year or so. It is possible that the original authors will continue to tinker with it, or further development may be made into another undergraduate lab project. 10/01/00 : It seems that the program refuses to run under Win98. This is most likely a MicroSoft problem, as it works fine under Win95 and Win NT 4 (the platforms we tested it on initially). 01/07/99 : The LATEST VERSION has been placed on the downloads page. Improvements over the previous version include : Resizable window. Faster detector drawing. Easier installation process. More 'robust' code. Also, the site has been registered with all the major search engines. 20/04/99 : Documentation and worksheets downloads updated with some errors corrected. 19/04/99 : Executable zipped using registered verion of WinZip utility uploaded. 15/04/99 : Worksheets download added. What is the BaBar Particle Physics Teaching Package? The BaBar Particle Physics Teaching Package consists of a program requiring an IBM-compatible PC with a 32-bit operating system, and a manual. It was commissioned for a Particle Physics Masterclass aimed at 16-18 year old physics students held in Manchester in April 1999. The timescale for the completion of the Beta version was very tight, and the whole package was designed, written and coded in the space of eight weeks. At the masterclass, it was w ell received by both teachers and pupils, and their feedback prompted further refinements to the package. The material covered is topical and up to date, commencing with relativity and the basics of particle physics and leading up to a 3D interactive simulation of the BaBar experiment (which commenced at SLAC this summer). This has the effect of teaching students the theory behind an experiment, then placing them in a realistic environment where they have to behave like scientists, an important consideration in the design of computer-based learning materials. The package can be used either by a teacher for demonstration purposes in a whole class situation, or on an individual / small group basis. The average A-Level physics student would probably take around 2 hours to cover the material and carry out all the calculations, preferably with breaks for teacher input. Its modular design makes it possible to skip from one section to another if some ground has already been covered in a previous session.