Experimental Methods

Scope of questions for State exams of Master's degree program

Branch: Nuclear and Particle Physics

Subject: Experimental Methods

Subjects regarding the questions:

  • 02MTD Modern Detectors
  • 02SDSD Detector Systems and Data Acquisition
  • 02SZD12 Statistical Data Analysis 1 and 2
1. Basic characteristics of detectors
destructive and nondestructive detection methods; resolution; detection efficiency; dead time; radiation hardness
 
2. Scintillation detectors
organic and inorganic scintillators, crystal and plastic scintillators, liquid scintillators; photomultipliers – hybrid, position sensitive, MCP; light-guides and wavelength shifters; photocathodes
 
3. Gaseous detectors
MWPC; MSGC; GEM; sTGC; (M)RPC; drift chambers and TPC; micromegas
 
4. Semiconductor detectors
APD; CCD; SiPMT; SSD; SPD; SDD
 
5. Detector hardware control
distributed systems EPICS a SCADA; communication protocols CANbus, Modbus, OPC, SNMP, RS232, MQTT; voltage sources for detection technique
 
6. Calorimetry, Energy and momentum measurement
electromagnetic calorimeters; hadron calorimeters; Zero-degree calorimeters
 
7. Particle identification, track detection, vertex detection
PID dE/dx and TOF; Cherenkov detectors; transition radiation detection; track detectors; position sensitive detectors; Kalman filter; vertex detection
  
8. Trigger and DAQ, systems for data storing and processing
HW trigger; SW trigger; signal processing and shaping; data storages
 
9. Statistical distribution characteristics
discrete and continuous distributions; Gaussian distribution; arithmetic mean and its error; exchange of variables; error propagation; law of large numbers; central limit theorem
 
10. Statistical tests
maximum likelihood method and least squares method; conditioned probability; total probability theorem; Bayes theorem; functional series around mean value