Single and double polarization observables in the electrodisintegration of the deuteron from Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-221).Understanding the underlying mechanisms involved in the interactions between nucleons is one of the fundamental problems in nuclear physics. Over roughly the last 70 years, this question has been approached on many different fronts. We believe that the theory underlying the interaction between nucleons is that between quarks and gluons described by Quantum Chromodynamics; however, a complete solution to the nucleon-nucleon interaction within this framework has yet to emerge. In parallel, the advent of polarization experiments involving both polarized beams and targets has provided new experimental avenues to test our understanding the reaction mechanisms involved in the nucleon-nucleon interaction. One important example is the electrodisintegration of the deuteron, ... (e[over-arrow], e'p)n, in particular the measurement of the beam-vector asymmetry, AV, and the tensor asymmetry, AT. Both of these asymmetries are sensitive to the d-wave components of the deuteron and are thus measurements of the effects of the tensor force in the nucleon-nucleon interaction. This work reports on measurements of AV and A T in the electrodisintegration of the deuteron that were performed by the BLAST collaboration at the Bates Linear Accelerator Center involving two data runs during 2004 and 2005. The measurements consisted of cross sections and asymmetries vs. missing momentum for a Q2 range of 0.1(GeV/c) 2 < Q2 < 0.5(GeV/c) 2 . Comparisons between Monte Carlo simulations based on a particular theoretical framework are made, and conclusions are drawn.by Adam DeGrush.Ph.D

Measurement of the Vector and Tensor Asymmetries at Large Missing Momentum in Quasielastic ([→ over e],e′p) Electron Scattering from Deuterium

We report the measurement of the beam-vector and tensor asymmetries A[subscript ed][superscript V] and A[subscript d][superscript T] in quasielastic ([→ over e],e′p) electrodisintegration of the deuteron at the MIT-Bates Linear Accelerator Center up to missing momentum of 500  MeV/c. Data were collected simultaneously over a momentum transfer range 0.1<Q[superscript 2]<0.5  (GeV/c)[superscript 2] with the Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid using an internal deuterium gas target polarized sequentially in both vector and tensor states. The data are compared with calculations. The beam-vector asymmetry A[subscript ed][superscript V] is found to be directly sensitive to the D-wave component of the deuteron and has a zero crossing at a missing momentum of about 320  MeV/c, as predicted. The tensor asymmetry A[subscript d][superscript T] at large missing momentum is found to be dominated by the influence of the tensor force in the neutron-proton final-state interaction. The new data provide a strong constraint on theoretical models