The dear experiment at DAΦNE

This paper gives an overview of the DEAR (DAΦNE Exotic Atom Research) experiment, which is fully ready to collect data at the new DAΦNE Φ-factory at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell'INFN. The objective of the DEAR experiment is to perform a precision measurement of the strong interaction shifts and widths of the K-series lines in kaonic hydrogen and the first observation of the same quantities in kaonic deuterium. The aim is to obtain a precise determination of the isospin-dependent kaon-nucleon scattering lengths what will represent a breakthrough in K bar N low-energy phenomenology and will allow to determine the symmetry breaking and are connected to the strangeness content of the proton. First results on background measurements with the DEAR NTP setup installed on DAΦNE are reported. (authors)