The Mainz Microtron Mami: A facility portrait with a glimpse at first results

Abstract

The Mainz Microtron MAMI is one of the accelerators that turned a long dream of nuclear and particle physicists into reqlity. It delivers electrons with a high current of up to 100 pA in cw mode at an energy of 855 MeV. These seemingly modest parameters present two major steps. The high luminosity is usable in coincidence experiments because of the 100% duty factor and thus the full potential of the electroweak probe can be exploited. Secondly, the energy and, therefore, the spatial resolution is just right to look for the compositeness of nuclei and for gross properties of nucleons and mesons. The last aspect, in particular, has gained great importance since an experimental test of chiral symmetry, a fundamental symmetry of QCD, became feasible.