Different tools have been developed by physicists to detect particle interactions, including one tool called a cloud chamber. A cloud chamber is a device that uses a supersaturated alcohol vapor to outline the paths of subatomic particles. It requires an adequate source of radiation, either background radiation or a radioactive element, that is placed inside the chamber and allowed to decay. The particles emitted from the decaying element form tracks, as a result of the condensation of the supersaturated alcohol. This condensation ionizes the particles as they are being emitted, which creates the visible track. In order to produce curved tracks, which are necessary for data analysis, a suitable magnetic field must also be applied to the moving particles. As these particles come into contact with the magnetic field, their tracks curve, allowing for measurements of the radius of curvature for each track to be deduced. The radius of curvature can then be used to determine the identity of the atomic nucleus that the emitted particle came from. Computer programming can be applied to this process to make it faster and more efficient. This thesis project involved the composition of a software that could control a cloud chamber apparatus set up to view the beta decay of Pb-210 and analyze the tracks produced by emitted electrons to determine their radius of curvature. By the completion of this project, a software was developed that could accurately detect tracks from test images and control several parts of a cloud chamber.

A cloud chamber allows the naked eye to observe the beta- particle track produced from certain radioactive isotopes. These cloud chambers can be used during radiation education, as they allow beta emitting isotopes to be seen. Within the apparatus, the white track that forms as a result of alcohol condensation, codenstates on the ions. These ions are left by electrons released from a radioactive isotope. In this experiment, a cloud chamber apparatus was placed under the conditions of a magnetic field. When a beta isotope is inserted into the chamber, the magnetic field should bend the beta-particle track. By measuring the radius of curvature of the electron tracks, the velocity is then observed. This velocity of the beta particle can then be used to calculate the kinetic energy, and ultimately can be utilized to identify the isotope.
The understanding of the methodology for identifying isotopes, nuclear waste cleanup can be effectively handled. In cases of environmental radioactivity, Geiger counters can only identify regions that are contaminated, as well as the number of radioactive particles per second within the region. Unfortunately they fail to determine the energy of each isotope. The identification of radioisotopes aid in the handling of cleanup and safety precautions.
This thesis focuses on the hardware and construction of the apparatus used, diving into electronics and particle physics. The software as well as future data collection and analysis will be conducted by Natjalia Bogdanovic, for defense in Spring 2020.

A series of experiments using a polarized beam incident on a polarized frozen spin target

(FROST) was conducted at Jefferson Lab in 2010. Results presented here were taken

during the second running period with the FROST target using the CEBAF Large Acceptance

Spectrometer (CLAS) detector at Jefferson Lab, which used transversely-polarized

protons in a butanol target and a circularly-polarized incident tagged photon beam with

energies between 0.62 and 2.93 GeV. Data are presented for the F and T polarization observables

for h meson photoproduction on the proton from W = 1.55 GeV to 1.80 GeV.

The data presented here will improve the world database and refine theoretical approaches

of nucleon structure.