9514885 Tabakin The new continuous electron beam facility (CEBAF) generates an electron beam that is not only energetic (4 GeV), but provides a large, steady current. With that beam, plus state-of-the art detectors, experimentalists will perform precision, innovative experiments to determine what happens when high-energy electromagnetic radiation (provided by the electrons) strikes a proton. Protons and electrons, which are prime building blocks of matter, have spin. At CEBAF, it will be possible to orient and measure their spins. Our goal will be to predict, using quark-models of the proton structure, the angular distribution of the mesons that are produced in such experiments. Mesons are the particles that generate the strong interactions that provide the nuclear or strong force, also called hadron dynamics. Some mesons are spinless, some have a spin of one, in some cases spin 2. We will predict, not only the likelihood of the production at various angels (their cross- sections), but also how their production is influenced by the initial electron and proton spin orientations and what final proton and meson spin orientations are predicted by the best available electromagnetic and strong interaction theories. Thus, we will be testing the validity of present formulations of hadron dynamics. ***
