Thesis Committee: Haiyan Gao, Kate Scholberg, Ronen Plesser and Calvin Howell (exofficio non-voting member)
ABSTRACT:
Polarized hydrogen and nuclear targets are essential for studying
the spin structure and form factors of nucleons. In this work we
develop two types of laser-driven polarized gas targets: a low-pressure
internal hydrogen (deuterium) target and a high-pressure external
helium- 3 target. The targets are polarized through the method of
spin-exchange alkali metal optical pumping. This paper describes the
target cells, the mechanisms for polarizing the target nucleon and
nuclei, the processes for measuring the target's nuclear polarization,
and the results of the polarization measurements.
Here is the thesis in PDF: Bell_thesis.pdf (about 3.80 MBytes)