Measurements of the electromagnetic and spin structure of nucleons and nuclei with the Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid.

The Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid (BLAST) is a detector designed to study the spindependent electromagnetic response of few-body nuclei at momentum transfers up to 1 (GeV/c)² at the MIT/Bates Linear Accelerator Center's South Hall Ring (SHR). The BLAST detector consists of an eight-sector copper coil array producing a toroidal magnetic field, instrumented with two opposing wedge-shaped sectors of wire chambers, scintillation detectors, Cerenkov counters, neutron detectors, a lead-glass forward calorimeter, and recoil detectors. The ability of BLAST to carry out multi-particle detection over a large solid angle from polarized internal targets will provide an unprecedented and unique opportunity to study simultaneously the spin structure of the few-body nuclear ground states, the reaction mechanisms, and the nucleon form factors. Presently, BLAST is under construction and it is on schedule to be done in summer 2001. A status of the project is presented as well as highlights of the scientific program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]