Measurement of spin motions in a storage ring outside the stable polarization direction

Polarized, stored beams are becoming a more and more important tool in nuclear and high energy physics. In order to measure the beam polarization in a storage ring the polarization vector of the stored beam has to aim, revolution for revolution, over a period of seconds to minutes, into the same, so-called “stable”, direction. Measurements at the Indiana University Cooler Ring are described in which for the first time in a storage ring oscillations of the polarization vector around this stable direction have been measured. The existence and the dynamics of such oscillations are, for instance, important for a new proposed technique for polarizing stored hadron beams