Experimental Investigation of Weak Non-Mesonic Decay of 10Be(Lambda)Hypernuclei at CEBAF

Abstract

Hypernuclei are convenient laboratory to study the baryon-baryon weak interaction and associated effective Hamiltonian. The strangeness changing process, in which a Lambda hyperon converts to a neutron with a release up to 176 MeV, provides a clear signal for a conversion of an s-quark to a d-quark. We propose to perform a non-mesonic weak decay study of 10Be(Lambda)hypernuclei using the (e,eK) reaction. These investigations will fully utilize the unique parameters of the CEBAF CW electron beam and RF system and are enabled by (1) the use of new detector for alpha particles based on the recently developed RF timing technique with picosecond resolution and (2) the small angle and large acceptance kaon spectrometer-HKS in Hall C.