The COMPASS experiment focused its physics program in the last two years on hadron spectroscopy stressing the light meson sector. As a fixed target experiment at the CERN SPS accelerator, COMPASS features large acceptance and high momentum resolution and thus qualifies well for studies of diffractive dissociation and central production. Hadron formation with both a 190,GeV $pi^-$ and a 190,GeV proton/$pi^+$ beam on liquid hydrogen, lead and copper was studied in the years 2008 and 2009. In this talk an overview of the experiment including the new Recoil Proton Detector will be given as well as a presentation of recent analyses and activities.
Université de Mayence (Allemagne)