Identifying Interesting Particle Physics Events at LEP

The purpose of these web pages is to allow you to identify for yourself some interesting particle physics interactions or "events". These events have been seen using an experiment called OPAL, at CERN, near to Geneva. This experiment that ran at LEP (the Large Electron-Positron collider), which was the largest particle accelerator in the world.

The emphasis is very much on your active participation. These exercises will explain as simply as possible a few important things you need to know about the OPAL experiment and the different types of events that can occur. But the main parts are where you play the role of "particle detective" and identify for yourself pictures of different types of event.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Detector and How to Understand the Event Pictures
• The Challenge (Part 1)
• How to Identify Events Containing a Particle-Antiparticle Pair
• The Challenge (Part 2)
• How to Identify Events Containing a Pair of W Particles
• The Challenge (Part 3)
• The Challenge (Part 4)
• How to Identify Slightly More Complicated Types of Event
• The Challenge (Part 5)

These pages were originally written by Terry Wyatt.
Acknowledgements.