The CEBAF large acceptance spectrometer (CLAS) is used to study photo- and electro-induced nuclear and hadronic reactions by providing efficient detection of neutral and charged particles over a good fraction of the full solid angle. A collaboration of about 30 institutions has designed, assembled, and commissioned CLAS in Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The CLAS detector is based on a novel six-coil toroidal magnet which provides a largely azimuthal field distribution. Trajectory reconstruction using drift chambers results in a momentum resolution of 0.5% at forward angles. Cherenkov counters, time-of-flight scintillators, and electromagnetic calorimeters provide good particle identification. Fast triggering and high data-acquisition rates allow operation at a luminosity of View the MathML source. These capabilities are being used in a broad experimental program to study the structure and interactions of mesons, nucleons, and nuclei using polarized and unpolarized electron and photon beams and targets. This paper is a comprehensive and general description of the design, construction and performance of CLAS

No abstract

The (e, e 0 p) reaction was studied on targets of C, Fe, and Au at momentum transfers squared Q 2 of 0.6, 1.3, 1.8, and 3.3 GeV 2 in a region of kinematics dominated by quasifree electron-proton scattering. Missing energy and missing momentum distributions are reasonably well described by plane wave impulse approximation calculations with Q 2 and A dependent corrections that measure the attenuation of the final state protons. [S0031-9007 (98) The (e, e 0 p) reaction with nearly free electron-proton kinematics (quasifree) has proven to be a valuable tool to study the propagation of nucleons in the nuclear medium [1][2][3]. The relatively weak interaction of the electron with the nucleus allows the electrons to penetrate the nuclear interior and knock out protons. These studies complement nucleon-induced measurements of proton propagation in nuclei which give more emphasis to the nuclear surface. This paper reports the first results of a systematic study of the quasifree knockout of protons of 300-1800 MeV kinetic energy from carbon, iron, and gold targets. This energy range includes the minimum of the nucleon-nucleon (N-N) total cross section, the rapid rise in this cross section with energy above the pion production threshold, and extends to the long plateau in the energy dependence of the N-N total cross section. These features of the N-N interaction would be expected to be reflected in the energy dependence of attenuation of protons as they pass 5072 0031-9007͞98͞80(23)͞5072(5)$15.00

In an exclusive measurement of the reaction gammad-->K(+)K(-)pn, a narrow peak that can be attributed to an exotic baryon with strangeness S=+1 is seen in the K(+)n invariant mass spectrum. The peak is at 1.542+/-0.005 GeV/c(2) with a measured width of 0.021 GeV/c(2) FWHM, which is largely determined by experimental mass resolution. The statistical significance of the peak is (5.2+/-0.6)sigma. The mass and width of the observed peak are consistent with recent reports of a narrow S=+1 baryon by other experimental groups.