Spin physics at COMPASS

COMPASS is a new fixed target experiment currently in operation at CERN. It has the goal of investigating hadron structure and hadron spectroscopy by using either muon or hadron beams. From measurements of various hadron asymmetries in polarized muon-nucleon scattering it will be possible to determine the contribution of the gluons to the nucleon spin. The main objective of the hadron program is searching for exotic states, and glueballs in particular. This physics programme is carried out with a two-stage magnetic spectrometer, with particle identification and calorimetry in both stages, which started collecting physics data in 2002, and will run at the CERN SPS at least until 2010. Preliminary results from the 2002 run with a 160 GeV muon beam are presented for several physics channels under investigation.