High Precision Measurement of the Proton Elastic Form Factor Ratio at Low $Q^2$

TL;DR

This paper reports a precise measurement of the proton elastic form factor ratio at low momentum transfer, revealing deviations from previous data and impacting our understanding of nucleon structure.

Contribution

The study provides the first high-precision measurement of the proton form factor ratio in the low $Q^2$ range using recoil polarimetry at Jefferson Lab.

Findings

The ratio $rac{ ext{G}_E}{ ext{G}_M}$ is a few percent lower than previous expectations.

The results suggest a smaller $ ext{G}_E$ at low $Q^2$ than previously measured.

Implications for proton radius and strangeness form factors are discussed.

Abstract

Jefferson Lab experiment E08-007 measured the proton elastic form factor ratio $\mu_pG_E/G_M$ in the range of $Q^2=0.3-0.7(\mathrm{GeV}/c)^2$ by recoil polarimetry. Data were taken in 2008 at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia, USA. A 1.2 GeV polarized electron beam was scattered off a cryogenic hydrogen target. The recoil proton was detected in the left HRS in coincidence with the elasticly scattered electrons tagged by the BigBite spectrometer. The proton polarization was measured by the focal plane polarimeter (FPP). In this low $Q^2$ region, previous measurement from Jefferson Lab Hall A (LEDEX) along with various fits and calculations indicate substantial deviations of the ratio from unity. For this new measurement, the proposed statistical uncertainty ($<1%$) was achieved. These new results are a few percent lower than expected from previous world data and fits, which indicate a smaller $G_{Ep}$ at this region. Beyond the intrinsic interest in nucleon structure, the new results also have implications in determining the proton Zemach radius and the strangeness form factors from parity violation experiments.