Acceleration of polarized protons to 22 GeV/cand the measurement of spin-spin effects inp+p→p+p

Abstract
Accelerating polarized protons to 22 GeV/c at the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchro- tron required both extensive hardware modifications and a difficult commissioning process. We had to overcome 45 strong depolarizing resonances to maintain polarization up to 22 GeV/c in this strong-focusing synchrotron. At 18.5 GeV/c we measured the analyzing power A and the spin-spin correlation parameter Ann in large- P2 proton-proton elastic scattering, using the polarized proton beam and a polarized proton target. We also obtained a high-precision measurement of A at P2=0.3 (GeV/c)2 at 13.3 GeV/c. At 18.5 GeV/c we found that Ann=(-2±16)% at P2=4.7 (GeV/c)2, where it was about 60% near 12 GeV at the Argonne Zero Gradient Synchrotron. This sharp change suggests that spin-spin forces may have a strong and unexpected energy dependence at high P2.

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