D. Meekins

Precision Rosenbluth measurement of the proton elastic form factors

We report the results of a new Rosenbluth measurement of the proton electromagnetic form factors at Q2 values of 2.64, 3.20, and 4.10 GeV2. Cross sections were determined by detecting the recoiling proton, in contrast to previous measurements which detected the scattered electron. Cross sections were determined to 3%, with relative uncertainties below 1%. The ratio mu(p)G(E)/G(M) was determined to 4%-8% and showed mu(p)G(E)/G(M) approximately 1. These results are consistent with, and much more precise than, previous Rosenbluth extractions. They are inconsistent with recent polarization transfer measurements of similar precision, implying a systematic difference between the techniques.

Probing Cold Dense Nuclear Matter

The protons and neutrons in a nucleus can form strongly correlated nucleon pairs. Scattering experiments, in which a proton is knocked out of the nucleus with high-momentum transfer and high missing momentum, show that in carbon-12 the neutron-proton pairs are nearly 20 times as prevalent as proton-proton pairs and, by inference, neutron-neutron pairs. This difference between the types of pairs is due to the nature of the strong force and has implications for understanding cold dense nuclear systems such as neutron stars.

First Determination of the Weak Charge of the Proton

The Q(weak) experiment has measured the parity-violating asymmetry in ep elastic scattering at Q(2)=0.025(GeV/c)(2), employing 145 μA of 89% longitudinally polarized electrons on a 34.4 cm long liquid hydrogen target at Jefferson Lab. The results of the experiments commissioning run, constituting approximately 4% of the data collected in the experiment, are reported here. From these initial results, the measured asymmetry is A(ep)=-279±35 (stat) ± 31 (syst) ppb, which is the smallest and most precise asymmetry ever measured in ep scattering. The small Q(2) of this experiment has made possible the first determination of the weak charge of the proton Q(W)(p) by incorporating earlier parity-violating electron scattering (PVES) data at higher Q(2) to constrain hadronic corrections. The value of Q(W)(p) obtained in this way is Q(W)(p)(PVES)=0.064±0.012, which is in good agreement with the standard model prediction of Q(W)(p)(SM)=0.0710±0.0007. When this result is further combined with the Cs atomic parity violation (APV) measurement, significant constraints on the weak charges of the up and down quarks can also be extracted. That PVES+APV analysis reveals the neutrons weak charge to be Q(W)(n)(PVES+APV)=-0.975±0.010.

Measurement of tensor polarization in elastic electron–deuteron scattering at large momentum transfer

Tensor polarization observables ( t(20), t(21), and t(22)) have been measured in elastic electron-deuteron scattering for six values of momentum transfer between 0.66 and 1.7 (GeV/c)(2). The experiment was performed at the Jefferson Laboratory in Hall C using the electron High Momentum Spectrometer, a specially designed deuteron magnetic channel and the recoil deuteron polarimeter POLDER. The new data determine to much larger Q2 the deuteron charge form factors G(C) and G(Q). They are in good agreement with relativistic calculations and disagree with perturbative QCD predictions.

New Measurements of the European Muon Collaboration Effect in Very Light Nuclei

J. Seely, A. Daniel, D. Gaskell, J. Arrington, ∗ N. Fomin, P. Solvignon, R. Asaturyan, † F. Benmokhtar, W. Boeglin, B. Boillat, P. Bosted, A. Bruell, M.H.S. Bukhari, M.E. Christy, B. Clasie, S. Connell, ‡ M.M. Dalton, D. Day, J. Dunne, D. Dutta, 12 L. El Fassi, R. Ent, H. Fenker, B.W. Filippone, H. Gao, 12 C. Hill, R.J. Holt, T. Horn, 3 E. Hungerford, M.K. Jones, J. Jourdan, N. Kalantarians, C.E. Keppel, D. Kiselev, M. Kotulla, C. Lee, A.F. Lung, S. Malace, D.G. Meekins, T. Mertens, H. Mkrtchyan, T. Navasardyan, G. Niculescu, I. Niculescu, H. Nomura, Y. Okayasu, A.K. Opper, C. Perdrisat, D.H. Potterveld, V. Punjabi, X. Qian, P.E. Reimer, J. Roche, V.M. Rodriguez, O. Rondon, E. Schulte, E. Segbefia, K. Slifer, G.R. Smith, V. Tadevosyan, S. Tajima, L. Tang, G. Testa, R. Trojer, V. Tvaskis, W.F. Vulcan, F.R. Wesselmann, S.A. Wood, J. Wright, L. Yuan, and X. Zheng Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory, Newport News, VA, USA Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA Basel University, Basel, Switzerland Hampton University, Hampton, VA, USA Mississippi State University, Jackson, MS, USA Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA, USA (Dated: October 27, 2009)

New Measurements of High-Momentum Nucleons and Short-Range Structures in Nuclei

We present new measurements of electron scattering from high-momentum nucleons in nuclei. These data allow an improved determination of the strength of two-nucleon correlations for several nuclei, including light nuclei where clustering effects can, for the first time, be examined. The data also include the kinematic region where three-nucleon correlations are expected to dominate.

Constraints on the nucleon strange form factors at Q(2)similar to 0.1 GeV2

We report the most precise measurement to date of a parity-violating asymmetry in elastic electron-proton scattering. The measurement was carried out with a beam energy of 3.03 GeV and a scattering angle=6 degrees, with the result A_PV = -1.14 +/- 0.24 (stat) +/- 0.06 (syst) parts per million. From this we extract, at Q^2 = 0.099 GeV^2, the strange form factor combination G_E^s + 0.080 G_M^s = 0.030 +/- 0.025 (stat) +/- 0.006 (syst) +/- 0.012 (FF) where the first two errors are experimental and the last error is due to the uncertainty in the neutron electromagnetic form factor. This result significantly improves current knowledge of G_E^s and G_M^s at Q^2 ~0.1 GeV^2. A consistent picture emerges when several measurements at about the same Q^2 value are combined: G_E^s is consistent with zero while G_M^s prefers positive values though G_E^s=G_M^s=0 is compatible with the data at 95% C.L.

Inclusive electron - nucleus scattering at large momentum transfer

The response function of nuclei in the quasielastic region at large momentum transfer (q≤10 fm^-1) is measured for a series of nuclei, 4He, 12C, 27Al, 56Fe, and 197Au, up to large values of the Bjorken scaling variables x<2.5.

High-precision measurement of the proton elastic form factor ratio mu_pG_E/G_M at low Q^2.

Abstract We report a new, high-precision measurement of the proton elastic form factor ratio μ p G E / G M for the four-momentum transfer squared Q 2 = 0.3 – 0.7 ( GeV / c ) 2 . The measurement was performed at Jefferson Lab (JLab) in Hall A using recoil polarimetry. With a total uncertainty of approximately 1%, the new data clearly show that the deviation of the ratio μ p G E / G M from unity observed in previous polarization measurements at high Q 2 continues down to the lowest Q 2 value of this measurement. The updated global fit that includes the new results yields an electric (magnetic) form factor roughly 2% smaller (1% larger) than the previous global fit in this Q 2 range. We obtain new extractions of the proton electric and magnetic radii, which are 〈 r E 2 〉 1 / 2 = 0.875 ± 0.010 fm and 〈 r M 2 〉 1 / 2 = 0.867 ± 0.020 fm . The charge radius is consistent with other recent extractions based on the electron–proton interaction, including the atomic hydrogen Lamb shift measurements, which suggests a missing correction in the comparison of measurements of the proton charge radius using electron probes and the recent extraction from the muonic hydrogen Lamb shift.

Compton-scattering cross section on the proton at high momentum transfer.

Cross-section values for Compton scattering on the proton were measured at 25 kinematic settings over the range s=5-11 and -t=2-7 GeV2 with a statistical accuracy of a few percent. The scaling power for the s dependence of the cross section at fixed center-of-mass angle was found to be 8.0+/-0.2, strongly inconsistent with the prediction of perturbative QCD. The observed cross-section values are in fair agreement with the calculations using the handbag mechanism, in which the external photons couple to a single quark.