[G12] Abstract for APS meeting

[John Price]

Hi all:

I would like to submit an abstract for the APS meeting, based on the
Lambda proton scattering results I showed a few weeks ago.  I put the
relevant plots on the wiki in my participant page.  Please let me know
if you have any comments.  

It's not letting me include a PDF version of this due to length
restrictions, so here it is in plain text.  Hopefully, everything will
render well enough.

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Elastic Lambda-proton Scattering in CLAS
John W. Price, CSU Dominguez Hills, for the CLAS Collaboration

The Λ-proton elastic scattering reaction is important to our
understanding of the structure of the proton and the nature of the
strong nuclear force.  Previous measurements of this process typically
used bubble chambers with kaon beams to produce the Λ “beam”, which then
interacted with a second proton inside the chamber.  The Λ can also be
produced in the photoproduction process γp→K+Λ, which has been studied
extensively at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility by the
CLAS Collaboration.   The relatively long decay length of the Λ makes it
possible for the Λ to travel along the target and interact with a second
proton in the target, leading to the elastic scattering process Λp→Λp.
The large acceptance of the CLAS detector makes it a good choice for the
study of such a complicated final state.    In an attempt to observe
this process, a data-mining project was initiated with the CLAS g12 run,
which used a tagged photon beam with 3.6<Eγ<5.4 GeV incident on a 40-cm
liquid hydrogen target.   Although neither the CLAS detector nor the g12
run was designed to search for this process, the apparent
non-conservation of baryon number in the final state leads to a very
stringent cut which results in a good signal for the process Λp→Λp.
Future work will look at the possibility of increasing the detection
rate for Λp→Λp, using the upgraded CLAS12 detector, along with possible
improvements to the target design.  This talk will discuss the
motivation for this work, the analysis and initial results, and the
possibilities for future studies.
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John

-- 
John W. Price
Professor and Chair, CSUDH Dept. of Physics
Co-Director, Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity
(310) 243-3403