EMMI Hadron Physics Seminar

A New QCD Facility for the CERN SPS

by Dr Jan Friedrich (TU München)

Europe/Berlin
Theory Seminar Room (SB3 3.170a) (GSI)

Theory Seminar Room (SB3 3.170a)

GSI

Description
CERN provides a variety of high-energy beams for nuclear and particle physics research. Among those delivered to the North Area, is the beam line M2 which is optimized to deliver an intense muon beam, but also hadron beams of both polarities. They are brought to an overground hall, which has been used in the past years almost exclusively by the COMPASS collaboration, with a broad experimental physics program on Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Since many questions around QCD remain still open, a new collaboration is currently forming, in the quest for setting up a new QCD facility in that place, and aims at a modern detector architecture and a large variety of measurements. Those range from lowest-Q^2 physics as the determination of the proton radius from elastic muon-proton scattering, to average-Q^2 reactions for hadron spectroscopy and high-Q^2 hadron structure investigations via the Drell-Yan process and deeply-virtual Compton scattering. We will give an overview over the status of the project and its Letter of Intent. Focus will be given to the elastic muon-proton scattering measurement, which involves planned contributions from GSI and PNPI (St. Petersburg), and some aspects of the hadron structure and spectroscopy program with antiproton and kaon beams. The M2 beam line is intended to be upgraded in order to provide radio-frequency separation of the hadron components, carrying forward a unique QCD facility for many years to come.