A beam line for electrons with energies in the range of 1 to 45 GeV, low contamination of hadrons and muons and high intensity up to 10^6 per accelerator spill at 27 GeV was setup at U70 accelerator in Protvino, Russia. A beam tagging system based on drift chambers with 160 micron resolution was able to measure relative electron beam momentum precisely. The resolution sigma_p p was 0.13% at 45 GeV where multiple scattering is negligible. This test beam setup provided the possibility to study properties of lead tungstate crystals (PbWO_4) for the BTeV experiment at Fermilab.
The MiniBooNE Collaboration observes unexplained electron-like events in the reconstructed neutrino energy range from 200 to 475 MeV. With $6.46 times 10^{20}$ protons on target, 544 electron-like events are observed in this energy range, compared to an expectation of $415.2 pm 43.4$ events, corresponding to an excess of $128.8 pm 20.4 pm 38.3$ events. The shape of the excess in several kinematic variables is consistent with being due to either $ u_e$ and $bar u_e$ charged-current scattering or to $ u_mu$ neutral-current scattering with a photon in the final state. No significant excess of events is observed in the reconstructed neutrino energy range from 475 to 1250 MeV, where 408 events are observed compared to an expectation of $385.9 pm 35.7$ events.
The Spin Asymmetries of the Nucleon Experiment investigated the spin structure of the proton via inclusive electron scattering at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at Jefferson Laboratory in Newport News, VA. A double--polarization measurement of polarized asymmetries was performed using the University of Virginia solid polarized ammonia target with target polarization aligned longitudinal and near transverse to the electron beam, allowing the extraction of the spin asymmetries $A_1$ and $A_2$, and spin structure functions $g_1$ and $g_2$. Polarized electrons of energies of 4.7 and 5.9 GeV were scattered to be viewed by a novel, non-magnetic array of detectors observing a four-momentum transfer range of 2 to 6 GeV$^2$. This document addresses the extraction of the spin asymmetries and spin structure functions, with a focus on spin structure function $g_2$, which we have measured as a function of $x$ and $W$ in four $Q^2$ bins.
We report on the highest precision yet achieved in the measurement of the polarization of a low energy, $mathcal{O}$(1 GeV), electron beam, accomplished using a new polarimeter based on electron-photon scattering, in Hall~C at Jefferson Lab. A number of technical innovations were necessary, including a novel method for precise control of the laser polarization in a cavity and a novel diamond micro-strip detector which was able to capture most of the spectrum of scattered electrons. The data analysis technique exploited track finding, the high granularity of the detector and its large acceptance. The polarization of the $180~mu$A, $1.16$~GeV electron beam was measured with a statistical precision of $<$~1% per hour and a systematic uncertainty of 0.59%. This exceeds the level of precision required by the qweak experiment, a measurement of the vector weak charge of the proton. Proposed future low-energy experiments require polarization uncertainty $<$~0.4%, and this result represents an important demonstration of that possibility. This measurement is also the first use of diamond detectors for particle tracking in an experiment.
Precision spectroscopy of the Muonium Lamb shift and fine structure requires a robust source of 2S Muonium. To date, the beam-foil technique is the only demonstrated method for creating such a beam in vacuum. Previous experiments using this technique were statistics limited, and new measurements would benefit tremendously from the efficient 2S production at a low energy muon ($<20$ keV) facility. Such a source of abundant low energy $mathrm{mu^+}$ has only become available in recent years, e.g. at the Low-Energy Muon beamline at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Using this source, we report on the successful creation of an intense, directed beam of metastable Muonium. We find that even though the theoretical Muonium fraction is maximal in the low energy range of $2-5$ keV, scattering by the foil and transport characteristics of the beamline favor slightly higher $mathrm{mu^+}$ energies of $7-10$ keV. We estimate that an event detection rate of a few events per second for a future Lamb shift measurement is feasible, enabling an increase in precision by two orders of magnitude over previous determinations.