2011/08/30 by Robert E. Marvel, Marvel, Robert E., Michael Vineyard +1
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Experimental and Theoretical Physics Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers #Physics Education (physics.ed-ph) #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1108.5977
openalex publication_date 2011/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We have developed an undergraduate laboratory experiment to make independent measurements of the momentum and kinetic energy of relativistic electrons from a β-source. The momentum measurements are made with a magnetic spectrometer and a silicon surface-barrier detector is used to measure the kinetic energy. A plot of the kinetic energy as a function of momentum compared to the classical and relativistic predictions clearly shows the relativistic nature of the electrons. Accurate values for the rest mass of the electron and the speed of light are also extracted from the data.