High Energy Experiments with a Polarized Proton Beam and a Polarized Proton Target

Abstract

During recent years there has been an increasing interest in the importance of spin in high energy strong interactions. This came from the very successful experiments using polarized proton targets at Berkeleyl), CERN2), and Argonne3). This work suggested that the further studies of spin, which require a polarized beam, might yield very exciting results. Around 1970 our group began working with the Argonne ZGS staff to accelerate a beam of polarized protons and scatter them from a polarized proton target. In 1973 a polarized beam was accelerated to multi-GeV energies for the first time. The ZGS now has a beam of 5 109 protons at 6 GeV/c with a polarization of more than 70%.