The PAX Collaboration has successfully performed a spin-filtering experiment with protons at the COSY-ring. The measurement allowed the determination of the spin-dependent polarizing cross section, that compares well with the theoretical prediction from the nucleon-nucleon potential. The test confirms that spin-filtering can be adopted as a method to polarize a stored beam and that the present interpretation of the mechanism in terms of the proton-proton interaction is correct. The outcome of the experiment is of utmost importance in view of the possible application of the method to polarize a beam of stored antiprotons.

QC 20121212

The paper describes the commissioning of the experimental equipment and the machine studies required for the first spin-filtering experiment with protons at a beam kinetic energy of 49.3MeV in COSY. The implementation of a low-β insertion made it possible to achieve beam lifetimes of τb=8000s in the presence of a dense polarized hydrogen storage-cell target of areal density dt=(5.5±0.2)×1013atoms/cm2. The developed techniques can be directly applied to antiproton machines and allow for the determination of the spin-dependent p¯p cross sections via spin filtering

The vector and tensor polarizations of a deuteron beam have been measured using elastic deuteron-carbon scattering at 75.6 MeV and deuteron-proton scattering at 270 MeV. After their acceleration to 1170 MeV inside the COSY ring, the polarizations of the deuterons were checked by studying a variety of nuclear reactions using a cluster target at the ANKE magnet spectrometer placed at an internal target position of the storage ring. All these measurements were consistent with the absence of depolarization during acceleration and provide us with a number of secondary standards that can be used in subsequent experiments at the facility

The PAX (Polarized Antiproton eXperiment) collaboration aims to polarise antiproton beams stored in ring by means of spin-filtering. The experimental setup is based on a polarised internal gas target, surrounded by a detection system for the measurement of spin observables. In this report, we present results from the commission of the PAX target (atomic beam source, openable cell, and polarimeter).