Measurement of high energy resolution inelastic proton scattering at and close to zero degrees

Measurements of inelastic proton scattering with high energy resolution at forward scattering angles including 0 degrees are described. High-resolution halo-free beams were accelerated by the cyclotron complex at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics. Instrumental background events were minimized using the high-quality beam. The remaining instrumental background events were eliminated by applying a background subtraction method. As a result, clean spectra were obtained even for a heavy target nucleus such as (208)Pb. A high energy resolution of 20 keV (FWHM) and a scattering angle resolution of +/- 0.6 degrees were achieved at an incident proton energy of 295 MeV. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.