Experiment 896 at the AGS

We propose to search for the H0 di-baryon state and for new states of nuclear matter produced in nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions at the AGS. This experiment enhances the existing AA program by extending the search into regions of short lifetime, on the order of half of the lambda lifetime, and complements the existing double strangeness exchange program by offering access to a new, more probable doorway channel, the coalescence of two lambdas into a bound di-lambda. The proposed detector is capable of unambiguously identifying the topological signature of unstable particle decays as well as the rigidity of each charged particle produced, affording a sensitive search for new metastable states and investigation of the properties of known strange particle states.