Date of Award

Winter 2002

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Physics

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

F William Hersman

Abstract

A study of the polarized electron beam asymmetry in semi-exclusive ( e, e'p) reactions on 4He and 12C over a large kinematic range has been performed. The beam asymmetry A'LT is related to the imaginary part of the longitudinal-transverse interference and therefore it vanishes in reactions proceeding through a channel with a single dominant mechanism. In quasifree nucleon knockout, the helicity asymmetry provides an unambiguous signature for the interference between direct knockout and rescattering amplitudes. The data were taken in April--May 1999 using polarized beams of energies between 2.2 and 4.4 GeV, with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) detector located in Hall B at the Jefferson Laboratory, VA. The measured asymmetries compare well with the theoretical predictions.

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