Analysis of scattered protons in deuteron electrodisintegration with a polarized electron beam and an internal polarized target

Abstract

Nuclear structure and the underlying internucleon (NN) interaction are central to the understanding of how nucleons interact. However, despite decades of research, Quantum Chromodynamics, which governs the interactions of quarks making up nucleons, continues to evade a fully tractable solution. As a result, understanding of the nucleon and how it interacts with other nucleons is not complete. Due to its simple composition, the deuteron has long been important in understanding the structure of the NN potential. In particular, the tensor asymmetry, Ad, and beam-vector asymmetry, Al, from deuteron electrodisintegration, ... , are sensitive to the existence of a tensor component in the NN interaction. The Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid (BLAST) provides a unique opportunity to measure deuteron electrodisintegration asymmetries at low momentum transfer. BLAST combines a high-duty polarized electron beam, an Atomic Beam Source (ABS) target of highly-polarized deuterium atoms, and a large-acceptance spectrometer detector. This work reports on measurements of A.4 and Aid for Q2 ranges between 0.1 and 0.5 (GeV/c)2. Comparisons with Monte Carlo simulations based on the current understanding of the deuteron are made, and conclusions are drawn.