The three-spectrometer facility at the Mainz microtron MAMI

Abstract A set-up of three high-resolution magnetic spectrometers, for simplicity named A, B and C, has been built as the central facility for the precise determination of double and triple coincidence cross sections of hadron knock-out and meson production through the scattering of electrons at the Mainz microtron MAMI. The spectrometers A and C with point-to-point optics in the dispersive plane and parallel-to-point optics in the non-dispersive plane have a solid angle of 28 msr and a momentum acceptance of 20 and 25%, respectively. They each consist of a quadrupole, a sextupole and two dipole magnets, reaching maximum momenta of 735 and 550 MeV/c, respectively. The spectrometer B has a solid angle of 5.6 msr and a somewhat reduced momentum acceptance of 15%, but it reaches a maximum momentum larger than that of the MAMI electron beam (855 MeV/c). It consists of a single-clamshell dipole magnet with point-to-point optics in both planes. Each spectrometer is equipped with a position-sensitive detector system consisting of four planes of vertical drift chambers, two planes of plastic scintillators and a threshold gas Cherenkov detector. The operational experiences demonstrate that all three spectrometers exceed the specifications. Selected results of double (e, e′ x ) and triple (e, e′ x 1 x 2 ) coincidence experiments, x 1 and x 2 standing for charged hadrons, are presented, which demonstrate the performance of the whole set-up.