No Arabic abstract
The physics case and an experimental overview of the MOLLER (Measurement Of a Lepton Lepton Electroweak Reaction) experiment at the 12 GeV upgraded Jefferson Lab are presented. A highlight of the Fundamental Symmetries subfield of the 2007 NSAC Long Range Plan was the SLAC E158 measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry $A_{PV}$ in polarized electron-electron (M{o}ller) scattering. The proposed MOLLER experiment will improve on this result by a factor of five, yielding the most precise measurement of the weak mixing angle at low or high energy anticipated over the next decade. This new result would be sensitive to the interference of the electromagnetic amplitude with new neutral current amplitudes as weak as $sim 10^{-3}cdot G_F$ from as yet undiscovered dynamics beyond the Standard Model. The resulting discovery reach is unmatched by any proposed experiment measuring a flavor- and CP-conserving process over the next decade, and yields a unique window to new physics at MeV and multi-TeV scales, complementary to direct searches at high energy colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The experiment takes advantage of the unique opportunity provided by the upgraded electron beam energy, luminosity, and stability at Jefferson Laboratory and the extensive experience accumulated in the community after a round of recent successfully completed parity-violating electron scattering experiments
Moller scattering is one of the most fundamental processes in QED. Understanding it to high precision is necessary for a variety of modern nuclear and particle physics experiments. In a recent calculation, existing soft-photon radiative corrections were combined with new hard-photon bremsstrahlung calculations to take into account the effect of photon emission at any photon energy, where the electron mass was included at all steps. To test the calculation, an experiment was carried out using the 3 MV Van de Graaff electrostatic accelerator at the MIT High Voltage Research Laboratory. Momentum spectra at three scattering angles at an incident electron energy of 2.5 MeV are reported here, and compared to the simulated radiative Moller spectra, based on our previous calculation. Good agreement between the measurements and our calculation is observed in the momentum spectrum at the three angles.
The E158 experiment at SLAC has made the first measurement of parity violation in electron-electron (Moller) scattering. We report a preliminary result using 50% of the accumulated data sample for the right-left parity-violating cross-section asymmetry (APV) in the elastic scattering of 45 and 48 GeV polarized electron beams with unpolarized electrons in a liquid hydrogen target. We find APV = (-160 +- 21 (stat.) +- 17 (syst.)) parts per billion, with a significance of 6.3sigma for observing parity violation. In the context of the Standard Model, this yields a measurement of the weak mixing angle, sin^2(thetaW-MSBAR)(Q^2 = 0.026 GeV^2) = 0.2379 +- 0.0016 (stat.) +- 0.0013 (syst.). We also present preliminary results for the first observation of a single-spin transverse asymmetry in Moller scattering.
The NuTeV experiment at Fermilab presents a determination of the electroweak mixing angle. High purity, large statistics samples of muon-neutrino and muon-antineutrino events allow the use of the Paschos-Wolfenstein relation. This considerably reduces systematic errors associated with charm production and other sources. With Standard Model assumptions, this measurement of sin2thw indirectly determines the W boson mass to a precision comparable to direct measurements from high energy e+e- and p-pbar colliders. NuTeV measures sin^2theta_W (on-shell) = 0.2253 +/- 0.0019(stat) +/- 0.0010(syst) which implies M_W = 80.26 +/- 0.11 GeV.
We investigate the parton distribution function (PDF) uncertainty in the measurement of the effective weak mixing angle $sin^2theta_{text{eff}}^{ell}$ at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The PDF-induced uncertainty is large in the proton-proton collisions at the LHC due to the dilution effect. The measurement of the Drell-Yan forward-backward asymmetry ($A_{FB}$) at the LHC can be used to reduce the PDF uncertainty in the $sin^2theta_{text{eff}}^{ell}$ measurement. However, when including the full mass range of lepton pairs in the $A_{FB}$ data analysis, the correlation between the PDF updating procedure and the $sin^2theta_{text{eff}}^{ell}$ extraction leads to a sizable bias in the obtained $sin^2theta_{text{eff}}^{ell}$ value. From our studies, we find that the bias can be significantly reduced by removing Drell-Yan events with invariant mass around the $Z$ pole region, while most of the sensitivity in reducing the PDF uncertainty remains. Furthermore, the lepton charge asymmetry in the $W$ boson events as a function of the rapidity of the charged leptons, $A_pm(eta_ell)$, is known to be another observable which can be used to reduce the PDF uncertainty in the $sin^2theta_{text{eff}}^{ell}$ measurement. The constraint from $A_pm(eta_ell)$ is complementary to that from the $A_{FB}$, thus no bias affects the $sin^2theta_{text{eff}}^{ell}$ extraction. The studies are performed using the Error PDF Updating Method Package ({sc ePump}), which is based on the Hessian updating methods. In this article, the CT14HERA2 PDF set is used as an example.
This article describes the future P2 parity-violating electron scattering facility at the upcoming MESA accelerator in Mainz. The physics program of the facility comprises indirect, high precision search for physics beyond the Standard Model, measurement of the neutron distribution in nuclear physics, single-spin asymmetries stemming from two-photon exchange and a possible future extension to the measurement of hadronic parity violation. The first measurement of the P2 experiment aims for a high precision determination of the weak mixing angle to a precision of 0.14% at a four-momentum transfer of Q^2 = 4.5 10^{-3} GeV^2. The accuracy is comparable to existing measurements at the Z pole. It comprises a sensitive test of the standard model up to a mass scale of 50 TeV, extendable to 70 TeV. This requires a measurement of the parity violating cross section asymmetry -39.94 10^{-9} in the elastic electron-proton scattering with a total accuracy of 0.56 10^-9 (1.4 %) in 10,000 h of 150 micro A polarized electron beam impinging on a 60 cm liquid H_2 target allowing for an extraction of the weak charge of the proton which is directly connected to the weak mixing angle. Contributions from gamma Z-box graphs become small at the small beam energy of 155 MeV. The size of the asymmetry is the smallest asymmetry ever measured in electron scattering with an unprecedented goal for the accuracy. We report here on the conceptual design of the P2 spectrometer, its Cherenkov detectors, the integrating read-out electronics as well as the ultra-thin, fast tracking detectors. There has been substantial theory work done in preparation of the determination of the weak mixing angle. The further physics program in particle and nuclear physics is described as well.