BigBite: A new large acceptance spectrometer for Jefferson Lab Hall A

A new spectrometer was recently added to the Jefferson lab Hall A experimental setup. This new device, nicknamed Bigbite for its large momentum and angular acceptance, brings new and exciting physics capabilities to Jefferson lab. Bigbite provides a solid angle acceptance of over 75 msr and a momentum acceptance of over 80\% and can be operated with luminocities upto 5 $\times 10^{36}$ cm$^2$s$^{-1}$. This newly commissioned spectrometer was recently used for Jefferson lab experiment E02-013; Measurement of the electric form factor of the neutron in the high $Q^{2}$ range from 1.2 to 3.5~$\mathrm{GeV} ^2$ through $\vec e(\vec{^3He},e'n)$. The new detector package including a set of Multiwire Drift Chambers, a scintillator plane, pre- shower and shower detectors was constructed for the spectrometer. This detector package allows the spectrometer to operate under high rate conditions with counting rates as high as 20 MHz/wire-chamber-plane while achieve a spatial resolution of $\sigma~\sim~200~\mu m$. Now there is a long list of approved Jefferson lab experiments accounting for more than 100 beam days waiting to use the Bigbite spectrometer.