Measurement of ionization in nuclear emulsion by lacunarity technique

This thesis explored "lacunarity" as a technique for measuring ionization and energy loss of charged particles in nuclear emulsion. Lacunarity is defined as the fraction of a track segment that consists of gaps. A comparison was made between lacunarity and other methods of measuring ionization, particularly the method of measuring blob density. The nuclear emulsion used was exposed to a one GeV/C K- -meson beam.produced by the accelerator at the university of California at Berkeley. Proton, K – meason, π – meson and muon tracks emanating from “stars” or sites of nuclear disintegration were used as bases of study. The procedure was to plot grain density as determined by lacunarity of a track segment as well as blob density versus residual range for the various particles. This student found that except for tracks of very heavily ionizing particles or of very lightly ionizing particles, lacunarity is a better measure of ionization and energy loss than is blob density.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306