Spin dependent electron scattering with the BLAST detector

The Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid experiment, BLAST, at the MIT-Bates Linear Accelerator Laboratory was designed to study in a systematic manner the spin-dependent electro-magnetic interaction in few-nucleon systems at momentum transfers below 1 GeV/c. Utilizing a polarized electron beam; highly polarized, internal gas targets of H and D: and a symmetric detector configuration: BLAST is able to make simultaneous measurements of several reaction channels for different combinations of beam helicity and target polarization (vector for H, both vector and tensor for D). BLAST will provide new data on the nucleon and deuteron form factors as well as study few body physics and pion production. Preliminary results are presented.