A technique is presented for precision measurements of the area densities, rho T, of approximately 5% radiation length carbon and (208)Pb targets used in an experiment at Jefferson Laboratory to measure the neutral pion radiative width. The precision obtained in the area density for the carbon target is +/- 0.050%, and that obtained for the lead target through an X-ray attenuation technique is +/- 0.43%. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The ep -> e'pp(0) reaction has been measured using the 5.754 GeV electron beam of Jefferson Lab and the CLAS detector. This represents the largest ever set of data for this reaction in the valence region. Integrated and differential cross-sections are presented. The W, Q(2) and t dependences of the cross-section are compared to theoretical calculations based on the t-channel meson-exchange Regge theory, on the one hand, and on quark handbag diagrams related to Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) on the other hand. The Regge approach can describe at the approximate to 30% level most of the features of the present data while the two GPD calculations that are presented in this article which succesfully reproduce the high-energy data strongly underestimate the present data. The question is then raised whether this discrepancy originates from an incomplete or inexact way of modelling the GPDs or the associated hard scattering amplitude or whether the GPD formalism is simply inapplicable in this region due to higher-twists contributions, incalculable at present.

We report results for the virtual photon asymmetry A I on the nucleon from new Jefferson Lab measurements. The experiment, which used the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer and longitudinally polarized proton ((NH3)-N-15) and deuteron ((ND3)-N-15) targets, collected data with a longitudinally polarized electron beam at energies between 1.6 GeV and 5.7 GeV. In the present. Letter, we concentrate on our results for A(1) (x, Q(2)) and the related ratio g(1)/F-1 (x, Q(2))) in the resonance and the deep inelastic regions for our J west and highest beam energies, covering a range in momentum transfer Q(2) from 0.05 to 5.0 (GeV/c)(2) and in final-state invariant mass W up to about 3 GeV. Our data show detailed structure in the resonance re-ion, which leads to a strong Q(2) dependence of A(1) (x, Q(2)) to. W below 2 GeV. At higher W, a smooth approach to the scaling limit, established by earlier experiments, can be seen, but A I (x, Q(2)) is not strictly Q(2)-independent. We add significantly to the world data set at high x, up to x = 0.6. Our data exceed the SU(6)-symmetric quark model expectation for both the proton and the deuteron while being consistent with a negative d-quark polarization up to our highest x. This data set should improve next-to-leading order (NLO) pQCD fits of the parton polarization distributions. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V.All rights reserved.

Spin structure functions of the nucleon in the region of large x and small to moderate Q 2 continue to be of high current interest. Among the topics one can study in this kinematic regime are spin-dependent resonance transition amplitudes and their interference with each other and the nonresonant background, the behavior of the asymmetry A 1 at large x, and the presence or absence of local duality in spin structure functions. The first moment of the spin structure function g 1 goes through a rapid transition from the photon point (Q 2=0), where it is constrained by the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn sum rule, to the deep inelastic limit where it is sensitive to the nucleon spin fraction carried by quarks. This opens up the possibility to study the transition from hadronic to quark degrees of freedom over the whole range of Q 2. Recently, we concluded a large experimental program to measure these observables with polarized proton and deuteron targets at Jefferson Lab. A highly polarized electron beam, solid polarized NH 3 and ND 3 targets and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Hall B were used to accumulate over 23 billion events with 4 different beam energies of 1.6, 2.5, 4.2 and 5.7 GeV. We present an overview of the experiment, its kinematic coverage and its statistical power. We show final results from the first run at 2.5 GeV and 4 GeV and preliminary results from the 5.7 GeV and the 1.6 GeV data sets