Published: 1982
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The antiproton beams from LEAR are a means for uncovering a hopefully fertile source of physics in the interactions of antiparticles with nuclei. Bound or resonant states have been searched for in the anti N N system and perhaps one candidate found. Resonances in the anti N-A system may have an independent origin, unrelated to isolated states in the two-body system but nevertheless very revealing of the essential nature of the two-body forces. The use of antiproton projectiles to study conventional, and occasionally exotic nuclear structure warrants some attention because of the extreme peripherality of many anti p-induced reactions and the expected strong iso-spin selectivity for inelastic excitation of say giant resonances. The annihilation channels which generate strong absorption in the nuclear interior, localize direct reactions in the nuclear surface. In this fashion anti p's ressemble heavy-ion projectiles but possess the virtue of being a rather more elementary probe and it should be possible to calculate the average anti p-A interaction (optical potential) from something closer to first principles. Perhaps the most fundamental reason for using antinucleons is as carriers, into the target, of antiquarks. It is not at all clear that the sea quarks in a hadron, i.e. in the form of quark-antiquark pairs, exist on an equal footing with valence quarks. The production of cc states (and even of s anti s) appears highly suppressed in nucleon-nucleon collisions. This suppression must be taken into account in establishing the relative merits of pp or p anti p colliders in producing say the W-meson. By introducing antiquarks directly via anti N N and anti N-A one should surely obtain more definite information about q anti q interactions with LEAR, at the low momenta presumably crucial for hadron structure. (WHK).