A didactic experiment to measure the muon lifetime with a set of plastic scintillators and a digital oscilloscope

We present a didactic experiment to measure the lifetime of cosmic-ray muons using a compact and relatively simple apparatus based on plastic scintillators, photomultiplier tubes, standard NIM electronics and a digital oscilloscope. The setup is designed to identify muons that stop in an aluminum absorber and subsequently decay at rest, producing a delayed electron signal. By measuring the time interval between the arrival of the muon and the detection of the decay electron, the muon lifetime is extracted from the resulting decay-time distribution. Different event topologies are selected according to the direction of the decay electron, allowing independent measurements and internal consistency checks. The data are analyzed using both binned and unbinned maximum-likelihood methods, providing an instructive comparison of statistical techniques commonly employed in particle physics. The experiment is well suited for advanced undergraduate or graduate laboratory courses, offering students hands-on experience with particle detection and statistical data analysis using instrumentation widely available in teaching laboratories.