Physics at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

Abstract

Abstract. The Continuous Electron Accelerator Facility, CEBAF, located at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, is devoted to the investigation of the electromagnetic structure of mesons, nucleons, and nuclei using high energy, high duty-cycle electron and photon beams. Selected experimental results of particular interest to the MAMI community are presented. PACS Personal CommentsIt is an honor and a pleasure to be here to celebrate the achievements of MAMI and the distinguished careers of Professors Arenhövel, Backe, Drechsel, Friedrich, Kaiser, and Walcher.We are all deeply aware of the extent to which the science we do builds on the achievements of those who have gone before us, and on the insights and hard work of our colleagues working in the field today. One of my very earliest memories as a scientist, dating from the days when I was a young graduate student, is that of attending "Photonuclear Physics Boot Camp" (otherwise known as the Photonuclear Gordon Conference) and learning from (and with) many of those "retiring" today.Thomas (Walcher) was one of the very first scientists I ever knew beyond the boundaries of my own laboratory. He came to visit us (at Yale), and I went and visited him and his colleagues at Darmstadt. It has been a great pleasure to follow his distinguished career in science, from low-Q 2 electron scattering to hadronic physics at CERN and beyond, and finally to the leadership role he has played at MAMI for many years.Hartmuth (Arenhövel) has been the keeper of the flame of all knowledge about the deuteron, and a worthy successor to Gregory Breit. You should know that I was a graduate student at Yale, and it was one of Professor Breit's missions in life to convince any and all who would listen that the deuteron was the essence of nuclear physics, and that until we understood the deuteron, we did not understand anything. I think it is fair to call Hartmuth the Gregory Breit of my generation; he has made so many contributions.a