SYSTEMATIC BEHAVIOR OF EJECTILE SPIN POLARIZATION IN THE PROJECTILE FRAGMENTATION REACTION

Ejectile spin polarization P in intermediate-energy projectile fragmen tation has been measured for different targets and incident energies u sing the RIPS fragment separator at RIKEN. The observed P as a functio n of the fragment momentum shows a systematic change when the atomic n umber of the target or the incident energy is varied. Most remarkably, P does not vanish at the momentum corresponding to the beam velocity, indicating an important effect which has not been considered in the p reviously proposed model.