A Direct Measurement of Hard Two-Photon Exchange with Electrons and Positrons at CLAS12

TL;DR

This paper proposes a direct measurement of hard two-photon exchange effects in electron and positron scattering off protons at CLAS12, aiming to resolve longstanding discrepancies in proton form factor measurements and improve understanding of nucleon structure.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive experimental approach to measure two-photon exchange contributions across a wide phase space using positron and electron beams at CLAS12, which has not been done before.

Findings

Anticipated high-precision data on two-photon exchange effects

Potential resolution of the proton form factor discrepancy

Enhanced understanding of multi-photon exchange in nucleon structure

Abstract

One of the most surprising discoveries made at Jefferson Lab has been the discrepancy in the determinations of the proton's form factor ratio $\mu_p G_E^p/G_M^p$ between unpolarized cross section measurements and the polarization transfer technique. Over two decades later, the discrepancy not only persists but has been confirmed at higher momentum transfers now accessible in the 12-GeV era. The leading hypothesis for the cause of this discrepancy, a non-negligible contribution from hard two-photon exchange, has neither been conclusively proven or disproven. This state of uncertainty not only clouds our knowledge of one-dimensional nucleon structure but also poses a major concern for our field's efforts to map out the three-dimensional nuclear structure. A better understanding of multi-photon exchange over a wide phase space is needed. We propose making comprehensive measurements of two-photon exchange over a wide range in momentum transfer and scattering angle using the CLAS12 detector. Specifically, we will measure the ratio of positron-proton to electron-proton elastic scattering cross sections, using the proposed positron beam upgrade for CEBAF. The experiment will use 2.2, 4.4, and 6.6 GeV lepton beams incident on the standard CLAS12 unpolarized hydrogen target. Data will be collected by the CLAS12 detector in its standard configuration, except for a modified trigger to allow the recording of events with beam leptons scattered into the CLAS12 central detector. The sign of the beam charge, as well as the polarity of the CLAS12 solenoid and toroid, will be reversed several times in order to suppress systematics associated with local detector efficiency and time-dependent detector performance. The proposed high-precision determination of two-photon effects will be...