Measurement of the Vector and Tensor Asymmetries at Large Missing Momentum in Quasielastic (→e, e'p) Electron Scattering from Deuterium

© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons. We report the measurement of the beam-vector and tensor asymmetries AVed and ATd in quasielastic (e, e' p) electrodisintegration of the deuteron at the MIT-Bates Linear Accelerator Center up to missing momentum of 500 MeV/c. Data were collected simultaneously over a momentum transfer range 0.1 < Q2 < 0.5 (GeV/c)2 with the Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid using an internal deuterium gas target, polarized sequentially in both vector and tensor states. The data are compared with calculations. The beam-vector asymmetry AVed is found to be directly sensitive to the D-wave component of the deuteron and have a zero-crossing at a missing momentum of about 320 MeV/c, as predicted. The tensor asymmetry ATd at large missing momentum is found to be dominated by the influence of the tensor force in the neutron-proton final-state interaction. The new data provide a strong constraint on theoretical models.