B. Zhao

Measurements of parity-violating asymmetries in electron-deuteron scattering in the nucleon resonance region.

We report on parity-violating asymmetries in the nucleon resonance region measured using inclusive inelastic scattering of 5-6 GeV longitudinally polarized electrons off an unpolarized deuterium target. These results are the first parity-violating asymmetry data in the resonance region beyond the Δ(1232). They provide a verification of quark-hadron duality-the equivalence of the quark- and hadron-based pictures of the nucleon-at the (10-15)% level in this electroweak observable, which is dominated by contributions from the nucleon electroweak γZ interference structure functions. In addition, the results provide constraints on nucleon resonance models relevant for calculating background corrections to elastic parity-violating electron scattering measurements.

Precision Measurement of the Neutron Twist-3 Matrix Element d^n_2: Probing Color Forces

Double-spin asymmetries and absolute cross sections were measured at large Bjorken xu2009u2009(0.25≤x≤0.90), in both the deep-inelastic and resonance regions, by scattering longitudinally polarized electrons at beam energies of 4.7 and 5.9 GeV from a transversely and longitudinally polarized (3)He target. In this dedicated experiment, the spin structure function g(2)((3)He) was determined with precision at large x, and the neutron twist-3 matrix element d(2)(n) was measured at ⟨Q(2)⟩ of 3.21 and 4.32u2009u2009GeV(2)/c(2), with an absolute precision of about 10(-5). Our results are found to be in agreement with lattice QCD calculations and resolve the disagreement found with previous data at ⟨Q(2)⟩=5u2009u2009GeV(2)/c(2). Combining d(2)(n) and a newly extracted twist-4 matrix element f(2)(n), the average neutron color electric and magnetic forces were extracted and found to be of opposite sign and about 30u2009u2009MeV/fm in magnitude.

A glimpse of gluons through deeply virtual compton scattering on the proton

The internal structure of nucleons (protons and neutrons) remains one of the greatest outstanding problems in modern nuclear physics. By scattering high-energy electrons off a proton we are able to resolve its fundamental constituents and probe their momenta and positions. Here we investigate the dynamics of quarks and gluons inside nucleons using deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS)—a highly virtual photon scatters off the proton, which subsequently radiates a photon. DVCS interferes with the Bethe-Heitler (BH) process, where the photon is emitted by the electron rather than the proton. We report herein the full determination of the BH-DVCS interference by exploiting the distinct energy dependences of the DVCS and BH amplitudes. In the regime where the scattering is expected to occur off a single quark, measurements show an intriguing sensitivity to gluons, the carriers of the strong interaction.It remains a challenge to find the structure and the distribution of the constituents of nucleons. Here the authors use a scattering method to get information about the gluons and quarks inside a proton and separate the contribution of Bethe-Heitler from the deeply virtual Compton scattering process.

Evidence for the onset of color transparency in ρ0 electroproduction off nuclei

We have measured the nuclear transparency of the incoherent diffractive A(e,e rho(0)) process in C-12 and Fe-56 targets relative to H-2 using a 5 GeV electron beam. The nuclear transparency, the ratio of the produced rho(0,)s on a nucleus relative to deuterium, which is sensitive to rho A interaction, was studied as function of the coherence length (l(c)), a lifetime of the hadronic fluctuation of the virtual photon, and the four-momentum transfer squared (Q(2)). While the transparency for both C-12 and Fe-56 showed no lc dependence, a significant Q(2) dependence was measured, which is consistent with calculations that included the color transparency effects

Precision measurements of A1N in the deep inelastic regime

We have performed precision measurements of the double-spin virtual-photon asymmetry A_1 on the neutron in the deep inelastic scattering regime, using an open-geometry, large-acceptance spectrometer and a longitudinally and transversely polarized ^3He target. Our data cover a wide kinematic range 0.277 ≤ x ≤0.548 at an average Q^2 value of 3.078 (GeV/c)^2, doubling the available high-precision neutron data in this x range. We have combined our results with world data on proton targets to make a leading-order extraction of the ratio of polarized-to-unpolarized parton distribution functions for up quarks and for down quarks in the same kinematic range. Our data are consistent with a previous observation of an A_1^n zero crossing near x=0.5. We find no evidence of a transition to a positive slope in (Δd+Δd)/(d+d) up to x=0.548x=0.548.