Lab Delights Users With Polarized Beam
Attend seminars: Find out what it is, why it's important!

Jefferson Lab's polarized electron beam has been delighting users since April with high levels of beam polarization and current, and with exceptionally high polarized source operational "up" time.

The Lab has excelled at improving the operational life of its polarization source, according to Charles Sinclair, Injector Group Leader. "And, we've got good current and polarization - performance is getting better and better," he said. Increasing the life of the polarized source helps experiments run more quickly and reduces maintenance time and costs.

The Lab's polarized beam began operation in April with the highly-successful parity violation and GEp experiments in Hall A, Sinclair explained. These two experiments used high average currents and ~ 40% polarization. More recently, the Lab has been delivering polarization above 70% with lower beam currents. Polarization as high as 78% has been delivered. The polarized source operational lifetime is above 1,000 hours at these high polarizations.

Users have been very happy with the polarized beam; and with the feedback they've given the Lab, staff members have identified ways to make it even better - higher polarization at higher current and with even longer operational lifetime. "We've gotten great feedback from our users on the nature of the beam," explained Injector scientist, Paul Rutt. "Working together, we've been able to use this information to improve the beam quality so the experiments can run more efficiently."

The Lab is working to further improve its polarized beam capabilities on several fronts. The Injector Group is developing new photocathodes with the goal of boosting polarization above 80%, and on a new polarized beam injector designed to increase beam lifetime at higher current levels.

Polarized beam is an area of increased importance in the user community and the Lab is committed to developing and expanding its polarized beam capabilities. To address this technology and its importance at the Lab, Staff Development & Training has scheduled a series of seminars on polarized beam, geared for the non-scientist. The first one was Dec. 18 with Sinclair tackling the question, "What's a Polarized Beam, Anyway?"

Seminars scheduled for January include: Jan. 15, Chris Keith "Hitting a Solid Target;" Feb. 5, Joe Mitchell "Polarized Targets;" and on Feb. 19, Allison Lung explaining why polarized beam is critical to the science we do here. Each of these seminars will begin at 3 p.m. in the ARC auditorium.

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