Sara Ripley is a fourth-year honours student in the department of physics.
“The past two summers I have been fortunate enough to work in Mainz, Germany at the Johannes Gutenberg University under the supervision of Dr. Dave Hornidge. The title of my project is Tracking Studies Using GenFit for the MUon Scattering Experiment. I am essentially using the GenFit software to examine how various detectors will track scattered and incident particles from the upcoming MUon Scattering Experiment (MUSE). The MUSE will consist of simultaneous electron- and muon-proton scattering in order to hopefully aid in solving the Proton Radius Puzzle (PRP). The PRP is based on the fact that when one measures the proton charge radius via elastic electron-proton scattering or electronic hydrogen spectroscopy, the result is significantly different (over 5σ) than if one were to use muonic hydrogen spectroscopy. I am incredibly excited to participate in an experiment as such, seeing as the PRP is one of today’s most recognized unresolved problems in physics.”
