Arrays of limited streamer tubes of the Iarocci type were deployed in our experiment at CERN as part of a forward muon detector system with provisions for the beam to pass through the center of each panel in the array. A total of 16 4 m×4 m panels were assembled with inductive readout strips on both sides of each panel. An active feedback system was deployed to regulate the high voltage to the streamer tubes to insure a constant efficiency for minimum ionizing particles. The arrays were operated in this environment for over five years of data taking. Streamer tube track-reconstruction efficiencies and tube replacement rates are reported.

The polarized target of the Spin Muon Collaboration at CERN was used for deep inelastic muon scattering experiments during 1993–1996 with a polarized muon beam to investigate the spin structure of the nucleon. Most of the experiments were carried out with longitudinal target polarization and 190 GeV muons, and some were done with transverse polarization and 100 GeV muons. Protons as well as deuterons were polarized by dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) in three kinds of solid materials — butanol, ammonia, and deuterated butanol — with maximum degrees of polarization of 94%, 91% and 60%, respectively. Considerable attention was paid to the accuracies of the NMR polarization measurements and their analyses, the accuracies achieved were between 2.0% and 3.2%. The SMC target system with two cells of opposite polarizations, each cell 65 cm long and 5 cm in diameter, constitutes the largest polarized target system ever built and facilitates accurate spin asymmetry measurements. The design considerations, construction and performance of the target are reviewed.

The optical transient of the faint gamma-ray burst GRB 990308 was detected by the QUEST camera on the Venezuelan 1 m Schmidt telescope starting 3.28 hr after the burst. Our photometry gives V = 18.32 +/- 0.07, R = 18.14 +/- 0.06, B = 18.65 +/- 0.23, and R = 18.22 +/- 0.05 for times ranging from 3.28 to 3.47 hr after the burst. The colors correspond to a spectral slope of close to f(v) proportional to nu(1/3). Within the standard synchrotron fireball model, this requires that the external medium be less dense than 10(4) cm(-3), the electrons contain more than 20% of the shock energy, and the magnetic field energy be less than 24% of the energy in the electrons for normal interstellar or circumstellar densities. We also report upper limits of V> 12.0 at 132 s (with LOTIS), V > 13.4 from 132 to 1029 s (with LOTIS), V>15.3 at 28.2 minutes (with Super-LOTIS), and a 8.5 GHz flux of less than 114 mu Jy at 110 days (with the Very Large Array). Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO 3.5 m and Keck 10 m telescopes reveal this location to be empty of any host galaxy to R > 25.7 and K> 23.3. The lack of a host galaxy likely implies that it is either substantially subluminous or more distant than a redshift of similar to 1.2.