Studying neutron structure at Jefferson Lab through electron scattering off the deuteron, using CLAS12 and the Central Neutron Detector

Abstract

Abstract Generalised Parton Distributions (GPDs) offer a way of imaging nucleons through 3D tomography. They can be accessed experimentally in processes such as Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS) and Deeply Virtual Meson Production (DVMP), where a high energy electron scatters from a quark inside a nucleon and a high energy photon or meson is produced as a result. Jefferson Lab has recently completed its energy upgrade and Hall B houses the new, large-acceptance CLAS12 detector array optimised for measurements of DVCS and DVMP in the newly accessible kinematic regime. Measurements on the proton and neutron are complementary and both are necessary to facilitate access to the full set of GPDs and enable their flavour separation. Neutron DVCS and DVMP are possible with the use of a deuteron target – the first CLAS12 experiment with which has started taking data this year. To enable exclusive reconstruction of DVCS and neutral-meson DVMP, a dedicated detector for recoiling neutrons – the Central Neutron Detector (CND) – was integrated into CLAS12. We present the first CLAS12 deuteron-target experiment, with a focus on the performance of the CND.