The focus of our program in experimental medium-energy nuclear physics is the understanding of the long-, intermediate-, and short-range part of the strong interaction both in the fundamental pion-N, eta-N and rho-N interactions and in the interactions of the photons, electrons, and mesons with the nucleon within the nuclear medium. We focus our attention toward preparing for experiments with real tagged photons, particularly at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, JLab, where we are co-spokespersons on five approved Hall-B proposals. We are also involved in experiments using the Crystal Ball at Brookhaven National Laboratory, BNL, that study the inverse photon-production processes and are co-spokesperson on an experiment that studies the hadronic production of the eta-Meson near threshold in the reactions pi^-p -> eta n and K^- p -> eta Lambda. In addition we are spokespersons on two experiments at the Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory, SAL.

All the above can be divided into four general catagories:

Photoabsorption and Photofission of Nuclei,
Photoreactions on Light Nuclei,
Photoproduction of Mesons,
Strangeness Production

As part of the team that is instrumenting the Photon Tagger Facility for Hall B at JLab, we have completed the installation and commisioning of the focal-plane detector array that was designed and built in our Nuclear Detector Laboratory. We are implementing the data-acquisition system for the Tagger as well. We also are planning to instrument a tagged polarized-photon beam using coherent bremsstrahlung from a diamond-crystal radiator--the facility has been designed and funded. Also, we have designed and built a novel kind of PPAD for fission-fragment detection for our photofission experiments at SAL and JLab. Click here for more details concerning our instrumentation program.

As for our computational facilities, we have a cluster of three alpha computers, four SGI workstations and the use of two SGI Challenge Machines. These computers form the basis for our new Data Analysis Center, which, like the Nuclear Detector Laboratory, will be operated under the auspices of The George Washington University Center for Nuclear Studies.