Charged kaons at 12 GeV JLab (Experiment E12-09-011)
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Motivation
The kaon electroproduction experiment, E12-09-011, has been scheduled to run in 2018/19. E12-09-011 will be the first measurement to isolate the longitudinal-transverse separated response functions in exclusive kaon production beyond the resonance region, a kinematic regime thus far not accessible. This allows for tests of the reaction mechanism in the transition from hadronic to partonic degrees of freedom when strangeness is in play. The data may also allow extractions of the kaon form factor at lower values of t than previously accessible. The anticipated results will provide the most precise spatial mapping of the kaon to date and may reveal new insight on the role of the strange quark.
We will measure the relative contributions and kinematic dependencies of the L/T separated cross sections, which can be used to verify the applicability of the GPD formalism and to constrain theoretical models).
We will analyze the t dependence of the longitudinal cross section to verify kaon pole dominance for which a small maximum is predicted. This may allow for kaon form factor extraction to the highest value of Q2 benefiting from the CUA group's experience with pion form factor extractions.
More detail on the physics can be found in the E12-09-011 proposal or the references listed below.
Detectors
An important aspect for kaon (and pion) experiments is particle identification. The CUA group built the SHMS aerogel Cherenkov detector (supported by NSF MRI PHY-1039446) that fulfills this need. We completed the installation of the detector in the SHMS in 2015. To carry out the experiments, at least ten exchanges of the four aerogel refractive indices are anticipated. We have thus been developing a procedure for efficient exchange of four aerogel trays, each holding one refractive aerogel index.