Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: SpinQuest is a fixed-target experiment at Fermilab to measure the Drell-Yan process using transversely polarized NH3 and ND3 targets and unpolarized 120-GeV proton beam. In the Drell-Yan process, a quark in one scattering hadron and an anti-quark in the other hadron annihilate into a virtual photon and then decay into a muon (lepton) pair. The angular distribution of final-state muon pairs with respect to the target polarization is sensitive to the Sivers function of light anti-quarks in the nucleon, which is one of the eight Transverse Momentum Dependent (TMD) parton distribution functions. The intensity of the proton beam is as high as 10^12 protons/second, in order to accumulate the required statistics of Drell-Yan events. The polarized target system at SpinQuest has been carefully designed to accommodate such a high beam intensity. It is equipped with an evaporation refrigerator with a cooling power of around 5 W at 1 K. The target temperature is maintained at 1 K even under heat load caused by the proton beam and the DNP microwave. The target system and the spectrometer were commissioned with the proton beam from May through July 2024. The experimental setup of SpinQuest and the performance of the target system during the beam commissioning is reported.
DOI: 10.22323/1.472.0038
Authors: Kenichi Nakano, Dustin Keller
Institution: University of Virginia
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy
OpenAlex ID: W4409555280