Differential cross sections for elastic Compton scattering from $^4$He have been measured with high statistical precision at the High Intensity $gamma$-ray Source at laboratory scattering angles of $55^circ$, $90^circ$, and $125^circ$ using a quasi-monoenergetic photon beam with a weighted mean energy value of $81.3$ MeV. The results are compared to previous measurements and similar fore-aft asymmetry in the angular distribution of the differential cross sections is observed. This experimental work is expected to strongly motivate the development of effective-field-theory calculations of Compton scattering from $^4$He to fully interpret the data.
We use the next-to-leading-order (NLO) amplitude in an effective field theory (EFT) for ${}^3$He + ${}^4$He $rightarrow {}^7$Be + $gamma$ to perform the extrapolation of higher-energy data to solar energies. At this order the EFT describes the capture process using an s-wave scattering length and effective range, the asymptotic behavior of $^7$Be and its excited state, and short-distance contributions to the E1 capture amplitude. We use a Bayesian analysis to infer the multi-dimensional posterior of these parameters from capture data below 2 MeV. The total $S$-factor $S(0)= 0.578^{+0.015}_{-0.016}$ keV b at 68% degree of belief. We also find significant constraints on $^3$He-$^4$He scattering parameters.
We report on the first measurement of the beam-spin asymmetry in the exclusive process of coherent deeply virtual Compton scattering off a nucleus. The experiment used the 6 GeV electron beam from the CEBAF accelerator at Jefferson Lab incident on a pressurized $^4$He gaseous target placed in front of the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS). The scattered electron was detected by CLAS and the photon by a dedicated electromagnetic calorimeter at forward angles. To ensure the exclusivity of the process, a specially designed radial time projection chamber was used to detect the recoiling $^4$He nuclei. We measured beam-spin asymmetries larger than those observed on the free proton in the same kinematic domain. From these, we were able to extract, in a model-independent way, the real and imaginary parts of the only $^4$He Compton form factor, $cal H_A$. This first measurement of coherent deeply virtual Compton scattering on the $^4$He nucleus, with a fully exclusive final state via nuclear recoil tagging, leads the way toward 3D imaging of the partonic structure of nuclei.
Compton scattering from the proton was investigated at s=6.9 (GeV/c)**2 and t=-4.0 (GeV/c)**2 via polarization transfer from circularly polarized incident photons. The longitudinal and transverse components of the recoil proton polarization were measured. The results are in excellent agreement with a prediction based on a reaction mechanism in which the photon interacts with a single quark carrying the spin of the proton and in disagreement with a prediction of pQCD based on a two-gluon exchange mechanism.
Differential cross sections for quasi-free Compton scattering from the proton and neutron bound in the deuteron have been measured using the Glasgow/Mainz tagging spectrometer at the Mainz MAMI accelerator together with the Mainz 48 cm $oslash$ $times$ 64 cm NaI(Tl) photon detector and the Gottingen SENECA recoil detector. The data cover photon energies ranging from 200 MeV to 400 MeV at $theta^{LAB}_gamma=136.2^circ$. Liquid deuterium and hydrogen targets allowed direct comparison of free and quasi-free scattering from the proton. The neutron detection efficiency of the SENECA detector was measured via the reaction $p(gamma,pi^+ n)$. The free proton Compton scattering cross sections extracted from the bound proton data are in reasonable agreement with those for the free proton which gives confidence in the method to extract the differential cross section for free scattering from quasi-free data. Differential cross sections on the free neutron have been extracted and the difference of the electromagnetic polarizabilities of the neutron have been obtained to be $alpha-beta= 9.8pm 3.6(stat){}^{2.1}_1.1(syst)pm 2.2(model)$ in units $10^{-4}fm^3$. In combination with the polarizability sum $alpha +beta=15.2pm 0.5$ deduced from photoabsorption data, the neutron electric and magnetic polarizabilities, $alpha_n=12.5pm 1.8(stat){}^{+1.1}_{-0.6}pm 1.1(model)$ and $beta_n=2.7mp 1.8(stat){}^{+0.6}_{-1.1}(syst)mp 1.1(model)$ are obtained. The backward spin polarizability of the neutron was determined to be $gamma^{(n)}_pi=(58.6pm 4.0)times 10^{-4}fm^4$.
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 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.