The HRS is composed of three superconducting quadrupole magnets, Q1, Q2, and Q3, and one superconducting dipole magnet. The large quadrupoles were manufactured for TJNAF by SIEMENS, the small quadrupole by SACLAY, while the dipole was built for TJNAF by WANG NMR. The quadrupole magnets are referred to as Q1, Q2, and Q3, where a particle first traverses Q1, then Q2 and the dipole magnet and finally traverses Q3.
The magnet system is followed by a large steel and concrete detector hut, in which all detector elements reside. Most of the detector elements have been built by universities involved in the Hall A physics program.
The HRS magnet system is the cornerstone of the Hall A activities. Many of the experiments approved in Hall A center on physics at high resolution and other short-range phenomena, and rely on a spectrometer able to momentum analyze charged particles up to very high momenta. The design value for the maximum momentum accessible to the HRS magnet system is 4 GeV/c.