Single and double polarization observables in the electrodisintegration of the deuteron from BLAST

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.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• DeGrush, Adam (Adam Jon)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Redwine.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62644

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/62644