The 1 H e; e 0 n cross section was measured at four-momentum transfers of Q 2 1:60 and 2:45 GeV 2 at an invariant mass of the photon nucleon system of W 2:22 GeV. The charged pion form factor (F ) was extracted from the data by comparing the separated longitudinal pion electroproduction cross section to a Regge model prediction in which F is a free parameter. The results indicate that the pion form factor deviates from the charge-radius constrained monopole form at these values of Q 2 by one sigma, but is still far from its perturbative quantum chromodynamics prediction. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.192001 PACS numbers: 14.40.Aq, 11.55.Jy, 13.40.Gp, 25.30.Rw A fundamental challenge in nuclear physics is the description of hadrons in terms of the constituents of the underlying theory of strong interactions, quarks, and gluons. Properties such as the total charge and magnetic moments are well described in a constituent quark framework, which effectively takes into account quark-gluon interactions. However, charge and current distributions, which are more sensitive to the underlying dynamic processes, are not well described.Hadronic form factors provide important information about hadronic structure. The coupling of a virtual photon to structureless particles is completely determined by their charge and magnetic moments. However, for composite particles one must account for the internal structure, which is accomplished by momentum transfer dependent functions. Examples of these functions are the electromagnetic form factors, which describe the distribution of charge and current.One of the simplest hadronic systems available for study is the pion, whose valence structure is a bound state of a quark and an antiquark. The electromagnetic structure of a spinless particle such as the pion is parametrized by a single form factor. Asymptotically, the pion charge form factor, F , is given in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) [1]:
The charged pion form factor, F π (Q 2 ), is an important quantity that can be used to advance our knowledge of hadronic structure. However, the extraction of F π from data requires a model of the 1 H(e, e π + )n reaction and thus is inherently model dependent. Therefore, a detailed description of the extraction of the charged pion form factor from electroproduction data obtained recently at Jefferson Lab is presented, with particular focus given to the dominant uncertainties in this procedure. Results for F π are presented for Q 2 = 0.60-2.45 GeV 2 . Above Q 2 = 1.5 GeV 2 , the F π values are systematically below the monopole parametrization that describes the low Q 2 data used to determine the pion charge radius. The pion form factor can be calculated in a wide variety of theoretical approaches, and the experimental results are compared to a number of calculations. This comparison is helpful in understanding the role of soft versus hard contributions to hadronic structure in the intermediate Q
We have measured parity-violating asymmetries in elastic electron-proton scattering over the range of momentum transfers 0.12 < or =Q2 < or =1.0 GeV2. These asymmetries, arising from interference of the electromagnetic and neutral weak interactions, are sensitive to strange-quark contributions to the currents of the proton. The measurements were made at Jefferson Laboratory using a toroidal spectrometer to detect the recoiling protons from a liquid hydrogen target. The results indicate nonzero, Q2 dependent, strange-quark contributions and provide new information beyond that obtained in previous experiments.
Precise data on the neutron magnetic form factor G mn have been obtained with measurements of the ratio of cross sections of D(e, e ′ n) and D(e, e ′ p) up to momentum transfers of Q 2 = 0.9 (GeV/c) 2 . Data with typical uncertainties of 1.5% are presented. These data allow for the first time to extract a precise value of the magnetic radius of the neutron.
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