Speaker
Description
The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research, FAIR, is under construction near Darmstadt, Germany. Among other large-scale installations, the PANDA (Antiproton annihilations in Darmstadt) experiment is designed to answer pressing questions in the charmonium mass region. At PANDA, an antiproton beam with momenta up to 15 GeV/c circulating in the high-energy storage ring HESR will interact with a hydrogen target. High interaction rates and unprecedented momentum precision will allow experiments addressing, among a variety of other physics goals, hidden and open charm spectroscopy. The detector system of PANDA is optimized to meet the challenges of high-resolution spectroscopy of charmonium states of any quantum number in formation and production with very good background suppression. At the same time, emphasis is placed on meeting the requirements of other parts of the physics program as, e.g. hyperon spectroscopy. The design of the subsystems of the PANDA spectrometers, a target solenoid and forward dipole, is well advanced. Prototypes have been subjected to beam tests, components are being prepared for early physics experiments. A status report on the detector components will be given and the physics reach of the full detector assembly will be underlined with studies in selected benchmark channels. Progress towards the realization of PANDA will be discussed alongside aspects of the physics program with emphasis on charm in baryons and mesons.
Work supported by BMBF and HFHF. PANDA is supported by the national funding agencies of the participating groups.
