Charge division in a cylindrical drift chamber for E1097

A review of the key concepts in the operation of a drift chamber are given. The equations governing charge division are developed. In order to optimize the chamber geometry, calculations were performed so that a suitable geometry for the chamber could be chosen. Electronics to determine position information along the wire (charge division) from the pulses at the two ends of the wire were designed and constructed. A test chamber was constructed and used to demonstrate the validity of the calculations as well as the ability of the electronics to make the position measurement. Results from tests using cosmic rays demonstrate position resolution to have a $\sigma$ of less than 4 mm

Measurement of the polarization of the muon beam for the SMC experiment

A high energy muon beam polarimeter for the SMC experiment at CERN is described, as is the analysis of the beam polarization. The polarization is determined using the shape of the energy spectrum of the positrons from the decay \mu\sp{+}\rightarrow e\sp{+}\nu\sb{e}\bar\nu\sb\mu which is described by the Michel spectrum. The parent muon is tagged upstream of a field-free decay region and its momentum is measured. A 30 m long muon decay path is defined between a shower veto hodoscope which identifies the \mu\sp{+} and a dipole analyzing magnet. The spectrometer includes the dipole magnet and several multi-wire proportional chambers which measure the momentum of the e\sp{+}. Identification of decay positrons is based on the energy deposited in a lead glass calorimeter. Muon polarization can be determined with 60 hours of data-taking to a statistical accuracy of 0.03 and a systematic uncertainty of the same order. Hence the muon beam polarization of $\simeq-0.8$ is measured to 5% relative accuracy