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

Abstract

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.