Precision measurement of the neutral pion lifetime Larin, I; Zhang, Y; Gasparian, A ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
05/2020, Letnik:
368, Številka:
6490
Journal Article
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The explicit breaking of the axial symmetry by quantum fluctuations gives rise to the so-called axial anomaly. This phenomenon is solely responsible for the decay of the neutral pion π
into two ...photons (γγ), leading to its unusually short lifetime. We precisely measured the decay width Γ of the Formula: see text process. The differential cross sections for π
photoproduction at forward angles were measured on two targets, carbon-12 and silicon-28, yielding Formula: see text, where stat. denotes the statistical uncertainty and syst. the systematic uncertainty. We combined the results of this and an earlier experiment to generate a weighted average of Formula: see text Our final result has a total uncertainty of 1.50% and confirms the prediction based on the chiral anomaly in quantum chromodynamics.
We have measured the beam-normal single-spin asymmetry $A_n$ in the elastic scattering of 1-3 GeV transversely polarized electrons from $^1$H and for the first time from $^4$He, $^{12}$C, and ...$^{208}$Pb. For $^1$H, $^4$He and $^{12}$C, the measurements are in agreement with calculations that relate $A_n$ to the imaginary part of the two-photon exchange amplitude including inelastic intermediate states. Surprisingly, the $^{208}$Pb result is significantly smaller than the corresponding prediction using the same formalism. These results suggest that a systematic set of new $A_n$ measurements might emerge as a new and sensitive probe of the structure of heavy nuclei.
The cross section of atomic electron Compton scattering γ+e→γ′+e′ was measured in the 4.400–5.475 GeV photon beam energy region by the PrimEx collaboration at Jefferson Lab with an accuracy of 2.6% ...and less. The results are consistent with theoretical predictions that include next-to-leading order radiative corrections. The measurements provide the first high precision test of this elementary QED process at beam energies greater than 0.1 GeV.
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.
Recently published measurements of the proton electromagnetic form factor ratio R = μp GEp/GMp at momentum transfers Q2 up to 8.5 GeV2 in Jefferson Lab Hall C deviate from the linear trend of ...previous measurements in Jefferson Lab Hall A, favoring a slower rate of decrease of R with Q2. While statistically compatible in the region of overlap with Hall A, the Hall C data hint at a systematic difference between the two experiments. This possibility was investigated in a reanalysis of the Hall A data. We find that the original analysis underestimated the background in the selection of elastic events. The application of an additional cut to further suppress the background increases the results for R, improving the consistency between Halls A and C.
Symmetry permeates nature and is fundamental to all laws of physics. One example is parity (mirror) symmetry, which implies that flipping left and right does not change the laws of physics. Laws for ...electromagnetism, gravity and the subatomic strong force respect parity symmetry, but the subatomic weak force does not1, 2. Historically, parity violation in electron scattering has been important in establishing (and now testing) the standard model of particle physics. One particular set of quantities accessible through measurements of parity-violating electron scattering are the effective weak couplings C2q, sensitive to the quarks’ chirality preference when participating in the weak force, which have been measured directly3, 4 only once in the past 40 years. Here we report a measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry in electron–quark scattering, which yields a determination of 2C2u-C2d (where u and d denote up and down quarks, respectively) with a precision increased by a factor of five relative to the earlier result. These results provide evidence with greater than 95 per cent confidence that the C2q couplings are non-zero, as predicted by the electroweak theory. They lead to constraints on new parity-violating interactions beyond the standard model, particularly those due to quark chirality. Whereas contemporary particle physics research is focused on high-energy colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider, our results provide specific chirality information on electroweak theory that is difficult to obtain at high energies. Our measurement is relatively free of ambiguity in its interpretation, and opens the door to even more precise measurements in the future.
Precise measurements of the proton electromagnetic form factor ratio R = mu(p)G(E)(p)/G(M)(p) using the polarization transfer method at Jefferson Lab have revolutionized the understanding of nucleon ...structure by revealing the strong decrease of R with momentum transfer Q(2) for Q(2) greater than or similar to 1 GeV2, in strong disagreement with previous extractions of R from cross-section measurements. In particular, the polarization transfer results have exposed the limits of applicability of the one-photon-exchange approximation and highlighted the role of quark orbital angular momentum in the nucleon structure. The GEp-II experiment in Jefferson Lab's Hall A measured R at four Q(2) values in the range 3.5 GeV2 <= Q(2) <= 5.6 GeV2. A possible discrepancy between the originally published GEp-II results and more recent measurements at higher Q(2) motivated a new analysis of the GEp-II data. This article presents the final results of the GEp-II experiment, including details of the new analysis, an expanded description of the apparatus, and an overview of theoretical progress since the original publication. The key result of the final analysis is a systematic increase in the results for R, improving the consistency of the polarization transfer data in the high-Q(2) region. This increase is the result of an improved selection of elastic events which largely removes the systematic effect of the inelastic contamination, underestimated by the original analysis.
We present the first measurement of the Q{sup 2} dependence of the neutron spin structure function g{sub 2}{sup n} at five kinematic points covering 0.57 (GeV/c){sup 2}{<=}Q{sup 2}{<=}1.34 ...(GeV/c){sup 2} at x{approx_equal}0.2. Though the naive quark-parton model predicts g{sub 2}=0, nonzero values occur in more realistic models of the nucleon which include quark-gluon correlations, finite quark masses, or orbital angular momentum. When scattering from a noninteracting quark, g{sub 2}{sup n} can be predicted using next-to-leading order fits to world data for g{sub 1}{sup n}. Deviations from this prediction provide an opportunity to examine QCD dynamics in nucleon structure. Our results show a positive deviation from this prediction at lower Q{sup 2}, indicating that contributions such as quark-gluon interactions may be important. Precision data obtained for g{sub 1}{sup n} are consistent with next-to-leading order fits to world data.
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