Neutral Particle Measurements and Searches with the E864 Spectrometer

Abstract

We present preliminary results from measurements of neutral particles and a search for neutral strangelets in Au+Pb collisions with the E864 spectrometer at the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. A brief historical survey of searches for strangelets is presented in the first section. The E864 apparatus is described in the second section with a particular emphasis on the hadronic calorimeter. Results concerning the performance of the E864 hadronic calorimeter as well as results relevant for the search for heavy neutral objects are presented in the third section. Conclusions and an outlook are given in the last section.