History and PRESENT STATUS of ME Program at BNL
1) Comments are my own--no official statements from BSA Management.
2) ME experiments are defined as those funded or proposed by ME contract
scientists. Definiton of ME is thus time-dependent.
3) ME experiments have a history at the Cosmotron and AGS dating back
to 1956 ! The Cosmotron program and the subsequent advent of LAMPF
stimulated the creation of ME program office of DOE. AGS involvement
has been virtually exclusively nuclear strangeness-related and the
first proposal goes back to 1978. Experiments continued without
interruption until 1998 with the termination of the fixed-target
AGS operation funded by HEP.
4) Until 1999, the position of DOE, as stated first by Dave Hendry,
and reiterated by Dennis Kovar, was no DOE nuclear-funded
fixed target AGS operation. This was EMPHATICALLY relayed to me
by T. Kirk.
5) At the 1999 User Meeting, after some input from colleagues from USA
and Japan, that categorical statement was modified to so as to
allow continuation of E930 (hypernuclear gamma rays) and
E931 (weak decay) in FY 2001, using beam available during E949
set-up.
6) BNL management has been discussing funding for a ME program
for spin physics experiments at RHIC. This includes pp2pp (elastic
scattering). The ME group is to be restructured to allow this.
7) In a parallel effort, lobbying for nuclear strangeness
continues along with proposals for baryon spectroscopy and Ke3 decay
using the Crystal Ball. There also appears to be considerable support
for continued experiments in the S=-2 sector.
8) NSF support now appears to be imminent for other rare decay
experiments like MECO. Many groups participating there have DOE ME
funding.
9) In view of 7) and 8), the possibility for AGS fixed-target
experiments in the future cannot be ruled out absolutely. The
advent of JHF would strengthen the role of AGS as a bridge to
JHF. The time frame for such experiments is from FY 2002 forward.
10) BSA management does not appear to present a united front
concerning the fixed-target nuclear program. There are mixed signals
sent to Washington.
11) There will be at least 3 new proposals and at least one LOI
relevant to ME presented at the next PAC meeting.
.....Submitted by R. E. Chrien
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