Measurement of G(E(p))/G(M(p)) in e(-->)p---> e(-->)p to Q(2) = 5.6 GeV(2)

Experimental constraints on polarizability corrections to hydrogen hyperfine structure

We present a state-of-the-art evaluation of the polarizability corrections--the inelastic nucleon corrections--to the hydrogen ground-state hyperfine splitting using analytic fits to the most recent data. We find a value Delta(pol)=1.3+/-0.3 ppm. This is 1-2 ppm smaller than the value of Delta(pol) deduced using hyperfine splitting data and elastic nucleon corrections obtained from modern form factor fits.

Superradiant spin-flip radiative emission of a spin-polarized free-electron beam

Radiative emission from the magnetic moments of the spins of an electron beam has never been observed directly, because it is fundamentally much weaker than the electric charge emission. We show that the detectivity of spin-flip and combined spin-flip-cyclotron-resonance-emission radiation can be substantially enhanced by operating with ultrashort spin-polarized electron beam bunches under conditions of superradiant (coherent) emission. The proposed superradiant spin-flip radiative emission scheme can be used for noninvasive diagnostics of polarized electron or positron beams. Such beams are of relevance in important scattering experiments off nucleons in nuclear physics and off magnetic targets in condensed matter physics.

Two-photon-exchange effects in the electroexcitation of the delta resonance

We examine the two-photon exchange contribution to the eN --> edelta(1232) --> epiN process with the aim of a precision study of the ratios of electric quadrupole (E2) and Coulomb quadrupole (C2) to the magnetic dipole (M1) gamma*Ndelta transitions. We relate the two-photon exchange amplitude to the N --> delta generalized parton distributions and obtain a quantitative estimate of the two-photon effects. The two-photon exchange corrections to the C2/M1 ratio depend strongly on whether this quantity is obtained from an interference cross section or from the Rosenbluth-type cross sections, in similarity with the elastic, eN --> eN, process.

Delta resonance contribution to two-photon exchange in electron-proton scattering

We calculate the effects on the elastic electron-proton scattering cross section of the two-photon exchange contribution with an intermediate Delta resonance. The Delta two-photon exchange contribution is found to be smaller in magnitude than the previously evaluated nucleon contribution, with an opposite sign at backward scattering angles. The sum of the nucleon and Delta two-photon exchange corrections has an angular dependence compatible with both the polarization-transfer and the Rosenbluth methods of measuring the nucleon electromagnetic form factors.

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.

Measurement of the transverse beam spin asymmetry in elastic electron-proton scattering and the inelastic contribution to the imaginary part of the two-photon exchange amplitude

We report on a measurement of the asymmetry in the scattering of transversely polarized electrons off unpolarized protons, A( perpendicular), at two Q2 values of 0.106 and 0.230 (GeV/c)(2) and a scattering angle of 30 degrees <theta(e)<40 degrees . The measured transverse asymmetries are A( perpendicular)(Q(2)=0.106 (GeV/c)(2))=(-8.59+/-0.89(stat)+/-0.75(syst))x10(-6) and A( perpendicular)(Q(2)=0.230 (GeV/c)(2))=(-8.52+/-2.31(stat)+/-0.87(syst))x10(-6). The first errors denote the statistical error and the second the systematic uncertainties. From comparison with theoretical estimates of A( perpendicular) we conclude that piN-intermediate states give a substantial contribution to the imaginary part of the two-photon amplitude. There is no obvious reason why this should be different for the real part of the two-photon amplitude, which enters into the radiative corrections for the Rosenbluth separation measurements of the electric form factor of the proton.

Constraints on proton structure from precision atomic-physics measurements

Ground-state hyperfine splittings in hydrogen and muonium are very well measured. Their difference, after correcting for magnetic moment and reduced mass effects, is due solely to proton structure-the large QED contributions for a pointlike nucleus essentially cancel. The rescaled hyperfine difference depends on the Zemach radius, a fundamental measure of the proton, computed as an integral over a product of electric and magnetic proton form factors. The determination of the Zemach radius, (1.019+/-0.016) fm, from atomic physics tightly constrains fits to accelerator measurements of proton form factors. Conversely, we can use muonium data to extract an experimental value for QED corrections to hydrogenic hyperfine data. There is a significant discrepancy between measurement and theory, in the same direction as a corresponding discrepancy in positronium.

Partonic calculation of the two-photon exchange contribution to elastic electron-proton scattering at large momentum transfer

We estimate the two-photon exchange contribution to elastic electron-proton scattering at large momentum transfer through the scattering off a parton in the proton. We relate the two-photon exchange amplitude to the generalized parton distributions which appear in hard exclusive processes. We find that when taking the polarization transfer determinations of the form factors as input, adding in the 2-photon correction does reproduce the Rosenbluth cross sections.

Precision measurement of the neutron spin asymmetryA(n)(1) and spin-flavor decomposition in the valence quark region

We have measured the neutron spin asymmetry A(n)(1) with high precision at three kinematics in the deep inelastic region at x=0.33, 0.47, and 0.60, and Q(2)=2.7, 3.5, and 4.8 (GeV/c)(2), respectively. Our results unambiguously show, for the first time, that A(n)(1) crosses zero around x=0.47 and becomes significantly positive at x=0.60. Combined with the world proton data, polarized quark distributions were extracted. Our results, in general, agree with relativistic constituent quark models and with perturbative quantum chromodynamics (PQCD) analyses based on the earlier data. However they deviate from PQCD predictions based on hadron helicity conservation.

Two-photon exchange and elastic electron-proton scattering

Two-photon exchange contributions to elastic electron-proton scattering cross sections are evaluated in a simple hadronic model including the finite size of the proton. The corrections are found to be small in magnitude, but with a strong angular dependence at fixed Q2. This is significant for the Rosenbluth technique for determining the ratio of the electric and magnetic form factors of the proton at high Q2, and partly reconciles the apparent discrepancy with the results of the polarization transfer technique.

How to reconcile the Rosenbluth and the polarization transfer methods in the measurement of the proton form factors

The apparent discrepancy between the Rosenbluth and the polarization transfer methods for the ratio of the electric to magnetic proton form factors can be explained by a two-photon exchange correction which does not destroy the linearity of the Rosenbluth plot. Though intrinsically small, of the order of a few percent of the cross section, this correction is accidentally amplified in the case of the Rosenbluth method.

Measurements of GnE/GnM from the 2H(e-->,en-->)1H Reaction to Q2=1.45 (GeV/c)2

We report new measurements of the ratio of the electric form factor to the magnetic form factor of the neutron, G(n)(E)/G(n)(M), obtained via recoil polarimetry from the quasielastic 2H(e-->,e(')n-->)1H reaction at Q2 values of 0.45, 1.13, and 1.45 (GeV/c)(2) with relative statistical uncertainties of 7.6% and 8.4% at the two higher Q2 points, which points have never been achieved in polarization measurements.

Perturbative QCD analysis of the nucleon's Pauli form factor F2(Q2)

We perform a perturbative QCD analysis of the nucleon's Pauli form factor F2(Q2) in the asymptotically large Q2 limit. We find that the leading contribution to F2(Q2) has a 1/Q6 power behavior, consistent with the well-known result in the literature. Its coefficient depends on the leading- and subleading-twist light-cone wave functions of the nucleon, the latter describing the quarks with one unit of orbital angular momentum. We also derive at the logarithmic accuracy the asymptotic scaling F2(Q2)/F(1)(Q2) approximately (log2Q2/Lambda2)/Q2 which describes recent Jefferson Lab data well.

Polarization transfer in the 4He(e-->,e'p-->)3H reaction up to Q2=2.6 (GeV/c)2

We have measured the proton recoil polarization in the 4He(e-->,e(')p-->)4H reaction at Q(2)=0.5, 1.0, 1.6, and 2.6 (GeV/c)(2). The measured ratio of polarization transfer coefficients differs from a fully relativistic calculation, favoring the inclusion of a medium modification of the proton form factors predicted by a quark-meson coupling model. In addition, the measured induced polarizations agree reasonably well with the fully relativistic calculation indicating that the treatment of final-state interactions is under control.

Cross-section measurement of charged-pion photoproduction from hydrogen and deuterium

We have measured the differential cross section for the gamman-->pi(-)p and gammap-->pi(+)n reactions at theta(c.m.)=90 degrees in the photon energy range from 1.1 to 5.5 GeV at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The data at E(gamma) greater, similar 3.3 GeV exhibit a global scaling behavior for both pi(-) and pi(+) photoproduction, consistent with the constituent counting rule and the existing pi(+) photoproduction data. Possible oscillations around the scaling value are suggested by these new data. The data show enhancement in the scaled cross section at a center-of-mass energy near 2.2 GeV. The cross section ratio of exclusive pi(-) to pi(+) photoproduction at high energy is consistent with the prediction based on one-hard-gluon-exchange diagrams.

Generalized counting rule for hard exclusive processes

We derive a generalized counting rule for hard exclusive processes involving parton orbital angular momentum and hadron helicity flip. We start with a systematic way to enumerate the Fock components of a hadronic light-cone wave function with n partons and orbital angular momentum projection l(z). We show that the wave-function amplitude psi(n)(x(i),k(i perpendicular ),l(zi)) has a leading behavior 1/(k(2)( perpendicular ))[n(+|l(z)|+min(n(')+|l(')(z)|)]/2-1) when all parton transverse momenta are uniformly large, where n(') and l(')(z) are the number of partons and orbital angular momentum projection, respectively, of an amplitude that mixes under renormalization. Besides the generalized counting rule, the result can be used as a constraint in modeling the hadronic light-cone wave functions.

Exclusive electroproduction of lepton pairs as a probe of nucleon structure

We suggest the measurement of exclusive electroproduction of lepton pairs as a tool to study interparton correlations in the nucleon via generalized parton distributions in the kinematical region where this process is light-cone dominated. We demonstrate how the single beam-spin asymmetry allows one to perform such a kind of analysis and give a number of predictions for several experimental setups. We comment on other observables which allow for a clean separation of different species of generalized parton distributions.