Jefferson Lab Tritium Program

Electromagnetic probes of few-body nucleon systems play a pivotal role in our attempts to understand the structure of both nuclei and the protons and neutrons that comprise them. Of particular interest, are light nuclei where, among other motivating factors, models are more easily developed. The simplest asymmetric nuclear system is the A=3 system. While experiments involving ³He are relatively common, the combined study of the mirror nuclei ³He and ³H can provide much deeper insight. This provided the onus for the development of a tritium target system. After considerable effort the Jefferson Lab Tritium Program became operational with first beam in December of 2017. Since that time, data have been successfully collected for two experiments with two more now in process and expected to be completed by late 2018. These experiments range in scope from the study of Short Range Correlations to the Hypernuclear ΛN interaction to the A=3 EMC effect and ratio of u/d in the nucleon. In this talk, the challenges of working with tritium and the development of the tritium target system are presented. Selected preliminary results and target performance will also be discussed.