Development of BigBite: A Large Acceptance Magnetic Spectrometer for JLab

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal will provide funds to upgrade a detector known as BigBite, which will be moved from its present location at the NIKHEF nuclear physics facility in the Netherlands to Jefferson Laboratory (JLAB) in Newport News, Virginia. The large acceptance of BigBite will complement the two existing high-resolution spectrometers in Hall A at JLAB, enabling experiments to be completed in months or weeks that might otherwise have taken years to complete. The upgrade supported by this award will enable BigBite to handle the much higher counting rates (up to six orders of magnitude) at JLAB compared to NIKHEF. Key approved experiments that will make use of BigBite include a high-precision measurment of neutral pion electroproduction (providing a test of chiral QCD dynamics), a measurement of the neutron electron form factor at high momentum transfer, and a study of short-range properties in nuclei via a triple-coincidence proton-knockout reaction. The detector upgrade and the experiments themselves will involved students and junior investigators in an essential way.