We report on a comprehensive reinterpretation of the existing cross-section data for elastic electron-proton scattering obtained by the initial-state radiation technique, resulting in a significantly ...improved accuracy of the extracted proton charge radius. By refining the external energy corrections we have achieved an outstanding description of the radiative tail, essential for a detailed investigation of the proton finite-size effects on the measured cross sections. This development, together with a novel framework for determining the radius, based on a regression analysis of the cross sections employing a polynomial model for the form factor, led us to a new value for the charge radius, which is
(
0.878
±
0
.
011
stat
.
±
0
.
031
sys
.
±
0
.
002
mod
.
)
fm
The next generation of high-luminosity experiments requires excellent particle identification detectors which calls for Imaging Cherenkov counters with fast electronics to cope with the expected hit ...rates. A Barrel DIRC will be used in the central region of the Target Spectrometer of the planned PANDA experiment at FAIR. A single photo-electron timing resolution of better than 100 ps is required by the Barrel DIRC to disentangle the complicated patterns created on the image plane. R&D studies have been performed to provide a design based on the TRB3 readout using FPGA-TDCs with a precision better than 20 ps RMS and custom frontend electronics with high-bandwidth pre-amplifiers and fast discriminators. The discriminators also provide time-over-threshold information thus enabling walk corrections to improve the timing resolution. Two types of frontend electronics cards optimised for reading out 64-channel PHOTONIS Planacon MCP-PMTs were tested: one based on the NINO ASIC and the other, called PADIWA, on FPGA discriminators. Promising results were obtained in a full characterisation using a fast laser setup and in a test experiment at MAMI, Mainz, with a small scale DIRC prototype.
Radiative corrections to elastic scattering represent an important part of the interpretation of electron-induced nuclear reactions at small energy transfers, where they represent a dominant part of ...the background. Here we present and validate a new event generator for simulating QED radiative processes in electron-carbon scattering that exactly calculates the coherent sum of the Bethe-Heitler amplitudes for the leading diagrams. We demonstrate that the generator describes the shape of the radiative tail of an elastic peak with a precision better than
10
%
over the whole energy range of the scattered electrons and can thus be reliably employed in the analyses of electron scattering experiments for more precise extraction of inelastic cross-sections.
We report on a new experimental method based on initial-state radiation (ISR) in e–p scattering, which exploits the radiative tail of the elastic peak to study the properties of electromagnetic ...processes and to extract the proton charge form factor (GEp) at extremely small Q2. The ISR technique was implemented in an experiment at the three-spectrometer facility of the Mainz Microtron (MAMI). This led to a precise validation of radiative corrections far away from elastic line and provided first measurements of GEp for 0.001≤Q2≤0.004(GeV/c)2.
The γ n → π 0 n differential cross section evaluated for 27 energy bins span the photon-energy range 290– 813 MeV (W = 1.195–1.553 GeV) and the pion c.m. polar production angles, ranging from 18° to ...162°, making use of model-dependent nuclear corrections to extract π0 production data on the neutron from measurements on the deuteron target. Additionally, the total photoabsorption cross section was measured. The tagged photon beam produced by the 883 MeV electron beam of the Mainz Microtron MAMI was used for the π0-meson production. Our accumulation of 3.6 × 106 γ n → π 0 n events allowed a detailed study of the reaction dynamics. Our data are in reasonable agreement with previous A2 measurements and extend them to lower energies. The data are compared with predictions of previous SAID, MAID, and BnGa partial-wave analyses and to the latest SAID fit MA19 that included our data. Selected photon-decay amplitudes N * → γ n at the resonance poles are determined for the first time.
The Dalitz decays η → e+e-γ and ω → π0e+e- have been measured in the γp → ηp and γp → ωp reactions, respectively, with the A2 tagged-photon facility at the Mainz Microtron. The value obtained for the ...slope parameter of the electromagnetic transition form factor of η, Λ$-2\atop{η}$ = (1.97 ± 0.11tot) GeV-2, is in good agreement with previous measurements of the η → e+e-γ and η → μ+μ-γ decays. The uncertainty obtained in the value of Λ$-2\atop{η}$ is lower than in previous results based on the η → e+e-γ decay. The value obtained for the ω slope parameter, Λ$-2\atop{ωπ^0}$ = (1.99 ± 0.21tot) GeV-2, is somewhat lower than previous measurements based on ω → π0μ+μ-, but the results for the ω transition form factor are in better agreement with theoretical calculations, compared to earlier experiments.
The double polarization observable E and the helicity dependent cross sections σ_{1/2} and σ_{3/2} were measured for η photoproduction from quasifree protons and neutrons. The circularly polarized ...tagged photon beam of the A2 experiment at the Mainz MAMI accelerator was used in combination with a longitudinally polarized deuterated butanol target. The almost 4π detector setup of the Crystal Ball and TAPS is ideally suited to detect the recoil nucleons and the decay photons from η→2γ and η→3π^{0}. The results show that the narrow structure previously observed in η photoproduction from the neutron is only apparent in σ_{1/2} and hence, most likely related to a spin-1/2 amplitude. Nucleon resonances that contribute to this partial wave in η production are only N 1/2^{-} (S_{11}) and N 1/2^{+} (P_{11}). Furthermore, the extracted Legendre coefficients of the angular distributions for σ_{1/2} are in good agreement with recent reaction model predictions assuming a narrow resonance in the P_{11} wave as the origin of this structure.
Precise helicity-dependent cross sections and the double-polarization observable E were measured for η photoproduction from quasifree protons and neutrons bound in the deuteron. The η → 2γ and η → ...3π0 → 6γ decay modes were used to optimize the statistical quality of the data and to estimate systematic uncertainties. The measurement used the A2 detector setup at the tagged photon beam of the electron accelerator MAMI in Mainz. A longitudinally polarized deuterated butanol target was used in combination with a circularly polarized photon beam from bremsstrahlung of a longitudinally polarized electron beam. The reaction products were detected with the electromagnetic calorimeters Crystal Ball and TAPS, which covered 98% of the full solid angle. The results show that the narrow structure observed earlier in the unpolarized excitation function of η photoproduction off the neutron appears only in reactions with antiparallel photon and nucleon spin (σ1/2). It is absent for reactions with parallel spin orientation (σ3/2) and thus very probably related to partial waves with total spin 1/2. The behavior of the angular distributions of the helicity-dependent cross sections was analyzed by fitting them with Legendre polynomials. The results are in good agreement with a model from the Bonn-Gatchina group, which uses an interference of P11 and S11 partial waves to explain the narrow structure.
The Compton double-polarization observable Σ 2z has been measured for the first time in the Δ (1232) resonance region using a circularly polarized photon beam incident on a longitudinally polarized ...proton target at the Mainz Microtron. This paper reports these results, together with the model-dependent extraction of four proton spin polarizabilities from fits to additional asymmetry data using either a dispersion relation calculation or a baryon chiral perturbation theory calculations with the weighted average of these two fits resulting in γE1E1=–2.87±0.52, γM1M1=2.70±0.43, γE1M2=–0.85±0.72 , and γM1E2=2.04±0.43 , in units of 10–4 fm4 .
The Dalitz decay π0 → e+e-γ has been measured in the γp → π0p reaction with the A2 tagged-photon facility at the Mainz Microtron, MAMI. The value obtained for the slope parameter of the π0 ...electromagnetic transition form factor, aπ= 0.030 ± 0.010tot, is in agreement with existing measurements of this decay and with recent theoretical calculations. The uncertainty obtained in the value of aπ is lower than in previous results based on the π0 → e+e-γ decay.