We have measured the beam-normal single-spin asymmetry An in the elastic scattering of 1-3 GeV transversely polarized electrons from 1 H and for the first time from 4 He, 12 C, and 208 Pb. For 1 H, 4 He and 12 C, the measurements are in agreement with calculations that relate An to the imaginary part of the two-photon exchange amplitude including inelastic intermediate states. Surprisingly, the 208 Pb result is significantly smaller than the corresponding prediction using the same formalism. These results suggest that a systematic set of new An measurements might emerge as a new and sensitive probe of the structure of heavy nuclei.

An experiment with a newly developed high-resolution kaon spectrometer (HKS) and a scattered electron spectrometer with a novel configuration was performed in Hall C at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The ground state of a neutron-rich hypernucleus,