Roy Holt,  Argonne National Laboratory
Many facets of the deuteron


Our simplest nucleus, the deuteron, has an extraordinary role in nuclear physics. The deuteron provides a unique testing ground for nuclear reaction and nucleon-nucleon models, searches for small or exotic effects in nuclei such as meson-exchange currents or quark effects, as well as serving as a nearly �free� neutron target for many experiments.  With the advent of medium energy facilities that were constructed during the latter part of the last century, numerous theoretical and experimental studies of reactions involving the deuteron were initiated.   In particular, the Argonne Medium Energy group has had a pioneering role in studies of the deuteron with beams of pions, protons, electrons and photons at a number of these facilities including LAMPF, IUCF, MIT-Bates, VEPP-3 at Novosibirsk, SLAC and Jefferson Lab.  Novel polarization techniques were developed for many of these studies.  Some highlights from these experiments will be presented.