Intermediate Energy Physics at Dartmouth

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

A student will work on the control system for the polarized Helium-3 target for the BLAST experiment at MIT Bates Linear Accelerator Center. This target will be used in 2004 for an experiment to measure the charge distribution inside of a neutron. A student will work with computers and the EPICS control system (used in many accelerator laboratories) to control lasers, power monitors and other components of this complex target. A student will also be able to participate in large, active and ongoing experiment which measures some of the basic properties of nature at the nuclear and sub-nuclear scales. In this project a student will be bringing a major data acquisition system (CODA) which is used at several major accelerator laboratories, to the lab bench. By working in cooperation with the data acquisition group at Jefferson Lab (Newport News, VA) and the an electronics group at Indiana University we will work to join CODA to the PCI-bus. The PCI-bus is the back bone of most Linux computers, and different then the hardware which traditionally drives data acquisition systems. This would allowing the testing of equipment on small systems to be done the same way as on large laboratory based data acquisition system.