The continuous electron beam accelerator facility: Project status and physics outlook

Abstract

Nuclear physics research program planning, accelerator tunnel construction, and accelerator component development, assembly, and testing are under way at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, Newport News, Virginia. CEBAF's 4-GeV, 200-μA superconducting recirculating accelerator will provide cw beam to simultaneous experiments in three end stations for studies of the nuclear many-body system, its quark substructure, and the strong and electroweak interactions governing this form of matter. An experimental program is being defined in collaboration with the user community. The experimental halls have been designed, and preliminary experimental equipment conceptual designs have been prepared. Planned for Hall A are two 4-GeV/ c high-resolution ( δp p ≤ 10 −4 ) spectrometers (HRS) with moderate acceptance (∼ 8 msr) for a program of completely exclusive experiments in which the nuclear final state has to be fully specified. A CEBAF large acceptance spectrometer (CLAS) is planned for the program of Hall B, which will include bias-free investigation of hadronic final states in inelastic electron scattering and detection of multiple-particle final states. The CLAS will be a multi-gap device based on a toroidal magnet with six superconducting coils arranged around the beamline to produce an essentially circular magnetic field. Hall C is envisioned as serving a diversity of interests, including form factor measurements, parity violation investigations, form factors of nucleon resonances, and a high- Q 2 baryon resonance program. A moderate-resolution, high-momentum, 6-GeV/ c spectrometer (HMS) together with several specialized second arms—in particular, a symmetric toroidal array spectrometer—are being planned to carry out Hall C experimentation.