Um novo exercício de International Masterclass para ensinar física de partículas

Abstract

The present work proposes the creation of a didactic sequence of an educational tool to teach particle physics to high school students. The International Masterclass is an activity with exercises in which students can simulate the work of a researcher through the use of dedicated software tools, thus giving them access to particle physics and the scientific research process. The proposed new exercise will use data from the LHCb experiment at CERN to reconstruct decays of B mesons. From the decay of this type of meson to lighter and more stable particles, the phenomenon of CP violation is explored, in order to give a brief overview of the behaviour of matter and antimatter. The current LHCb exercise, related to the decay of the D 0 meson, was translated to Portuguese as part of the dissertation product and applied to two groups of high school students at the Institute of Physics of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The application of this activity proved to be a very positive practice according to the students’ reports. The software of the new exercise is still under development. The instruction manual comprises the second part of the educational product in this dissertation, and was developed based on the instruction manual of the existing exercise.