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Title: Measurement of parity violation in electron–quark scattering

Abstract

Symmetry permeates nature and is fundamental to all laws of physics. One example is parity (mirror) symmetry, which implies that flipping left and right does not change the laws of physics. Laws for electromagnetism, gravity and the subatomic strong force respect parity symmetry, but the subatomic weak force does not. Historically, parity violation in electron scattering has been important in establishing (and now testing) the standard model of particle physics. One particular set of quantities accessible through measurements of parity-violating electron scattering are the effective weak couplings C2q, sensitive to the quarks chirality preference when participating in the weak force, which have been measured directly3, 4 only once in the past 40?years. Here we report a measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry in electron-quark scattering, which yields a determination of 2C2u???C2d (where u and d denote up and down quarks, respectively) with a precision increased by a factor of five relative to the earlier result. These results provide evidence with greater than 95 per cent confidence that the C2q couplings are non-zero, as predicted by the electroweak theory. They lead to constraints on new parity-violating interactions beyond the standard model, particularly those due to quark chirality. Whereas contemporary particle physics researchmore » is focused on high-energy colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider, our results provide specific chirality information on electroweak theory that is difficult to obtain at high energies. Our measurement is relatively free of ambiguity in its interpretation, and opens the door to even more precise measurements in the future.« less

Authors:
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Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
OSTI Identifier:
1184660
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Nature
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 506; Journal Issue: 7486; Journal ID: ISSN 0028-0836
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Wang, D., Pan, K., Subedi, R., Deng, X., Ahmed, Z., Allada, K., Aniol, K. A., Armstrong, D. S., Arrington, J., Bellini, V., Beminiwattha, R., Benesch, J., Benmokhtar, F., Bertozzi, W., Camsonne, A., Canan, M., Cates, G. D., Chen, J.-P., Chudakov, E., Cisbani, E., Dalton, M. M., de Jager, C. W., De Leo, R., Deconinck, W., Deur, A., Dutta, C., El Fassi, L., Erler, J., Flay, D., Franklin, G. B., Friend, M., Frullani, S., Garibaldi, F., Gilad, S., Giusa, A., Glamazdin, A., Golge, S., Grimm, K., Hafidi, K., Hansen, J.-O., Higinbotham, D. W., Holmes, R., Holmstrom, T., Holt, R. J., Huang, J., Hyde, C. E., Jen, C. M., Jones, D., Kang, Hoyoung, King, P. M., Kowalski, S., Kumar, K. S., Lee, J. H., LeRose, J. J., Liyanage, N., Long, E., McNulty, D., Margaziotis, D. J., Meddi, F., Meekins, D. G., Mercado, L., Meziani, Z.-E., Michaels, R., Mihovilovic, M., Muangma, N., Myers, K. E., Nanda, S., Narayan, A., Nelyubin, V., Nuruzzaman,, Oh, Y., Parno, D., Paschke, K. D., Phillips, S. K., Qian, X., Qiang, Y., Quinn, B., Rakhman, A., Reimer, P. E., Rider, K., Riordan, S., Roche, J., Rubin, J., Russo, G., Saenboonruang, K., Saha, A., Sawatzky, B., Shahinyan, A., Silwal, R., Sirca, S., Souder, P. A., Suleiman, R., Sulkosky, V., Sutera, C. M., Tobias, W. A., Urciuoli, G. M., Waidyawansa, B., Wojtsekhowski, B., Ye, L., Zhao, B., and Zheng, X. Measurement of parity violation in electron–quark scattering. United States: N. p., 2014. Web. doi:10.1038/nature12964.
Wang, D., Pan, K., Subedi, R., Deng, X., Ahmed, Z., Allada, K., Aniol, K. A., Armstrong, D. S., Arrington, J., Bellini, V., Beminiwattha, R., Benesch, J., Benmokhtar, F., Bertozzi, W., Camsonne, A., Canan, M., Cates, G. D., Chen, J.-P., Chudakov, E., Cisbani, E., Dalton, M. M., de Jager, C. W., De Leo, R., Deconinck, W., Deur, A., Dutta, C., El Fassi, L., Erler, J., Flay, D., Franklin, G. B., Friend, M., Frullani, S., Garibaldi, F., Gilad, S., Giusa, A., Glamazdin, A., Golge, S., Grimm, K., Hafidi, K., Hansen, J.-O., Higinbotham, D. W., Holmes, R., Holmstrom, T., Holt, R. J., Huang, J., Hyde, C. E., Jen, C. M., Jones, D., Kang, Hoyoung, King, P. M., Kowalski, S., Kumar, K. S., Lee, J. H., LeRose, J. J., Liyanage, N., Long, E., McNulty, D., Margaziotis, D. J., Meddi, F., Meekins, D. G., Mercado, L., Meziani, Z.-E., Michaels, R., Mihovilovic, M., Muangma, N., Myers, K. E., Nanda, S., Narayan, A., Nelyubin, V., Nuruzzaman,, Oh, Y., Parno, D., Paschke, K. D., Phillips, S. K., Qian, X., Qiang, Y., Quinn, B., Rakhman, A., Reimer, P. E., Rider, K., Riordan, S., Roche, J., Rubin, J., Russo, G., Saenboonruang, K., Saha, A., Sawatzky, B., Shahinyan, A., Silwal, R., Sirca, S., Souder, P. A., Suleiman, R., Sulkosky, V., Sutera, C. M., Tobias, W. A., Urciuoli, G. M., Waidyawansa, B., Wojtsekhowski, B., Ye, L., Zhao, B., & Zheng, X. Measurement of parity violation in electron–quark scattering. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12964
Wang, D., Pan, K., Subedi, R., Deng, X., Ahmed, Z., Allada, K., Aniol, K. A., Armstrong, D. S., Arrington, J., Bellini, V., Beminiwattha, R., Benesch, J., Benmokhtar, F., Bertozzi, W., Camsonne, A., Canan, M., Cates, G. D., Chen, J.-P., Chudakov, E., Cisbani, E., Dalton, M. M., de Jager, C. W., De Leo, R., Deconinck, W., Deur, A., Dutta, C., El Fassi, L., Erler, J., Flay, D., Franklin, G. B., Friend, M., Frullani, S., Garibaldi, F., Gilad, S., Giusa, A., Glamazdin, A., Golge, S., Grimm, K., Hafidi, K., Hansen, J.-O., Higinbotham, D. W., Holmes, R., Holmstrom, T., Holt, R. J., Huang, J., Hyde, C. E., Jen, C. M., Jones, D., Kang, Hoyoung, King, P. M., Kowalski, S., Kumar, K. S., Lee, J. H., LeRose, J. J., Liyanage, N., Long, E., McNulty, D., Margaziotis, D. J., Meddi, F., Meekins, D. G., Mercado, L., Meziani, Z.-E., Michaels, R., Mihovilovic, M., Muangma, N., Myers, K. E., Nanda, S., Narayan, A., Nelyubin, V., Nuruzzaman,, Oh, Y., Parno, D., Paschke, K. D., Phillips, S. K., Qian, X., Qiang, Y., Quinn, B., Rakhman, A., Reimer, P. E., Rider, K., Riordan, S., Roche, J., Rubin, J., Russo, G., Saenboonruang, K., Saha, A., Sawatzky, B., Shahinyan, A., Silwal, R., Sirca, S., Souder, P. A., Suleiman, R., Sulkosky, V., Sutera, C. M., Tobias, W. A., Urciuoli, G. M., Waidyawansa, B., Wojtsekhowski, B., Ye, L., Zhao, B., and Zheng, X. 2014. "Measurement of parity violation in electron–quark scattering". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12964.
@article{osti_1184660,
title = {Measurement of parity violation in electron–quark scattering},
author = {Wang, D. and Pan, K. and Subedi, R. and Deng, X. and Ahmed, Z. and Allada, K. and Aniol, K. A. and Armstrong, D. S. and Arrington, J. and Bellini, V. and Beminiwattha, R. and Benesch, J. and Benmokhtar, F. and Bertozzi, W. and Camsonne, A. and Canan, M. and Cates, G. D. and Chen, J.-P. and Chudakov, E. and Cisbani, E. and Dalton, M. M. and de Jager, C. W. and De Leo, R. and Deconinck, W. and Deur, A. and Dutta, C. and El Fassi, L. and Erler, J. and Flay, D. and Franklin, G. B. and Friend, M. and Frullani, S. and Garibaldi, F. and Gilad, S. and Giusa, A. and Glamazdin, A. and Golge, S. and Grimm, K. and Hafidi, K. and Hansen, J.-O. and Higinbotham, D. W. and Holmes, R. and Holmstrom, T. and Holt, R. J. and Huang, J. and Hyde, C. E. and Jen, C. M. and Jones, D. and Kang, Hoyoung and King, P. M. and Kowalski, S. and Kumar, K. S. and Lee, J. H. and LeRose, J. J. and Liyanage, N. and Long, E. and McNulty, D. and Margaziotis, D. J. and Meddi, F. and Meekins, D. G. and Mercado, L. and Meziani, Z.-E. and Michaels, R. and Mihovilovic, M. and Muangma, N. and Myers, K. E. and Nanda, S. and Narayan, A. and Nelyubin, V. and Nuruzzaman, and Oh, Y. and Parno, D. and Paschke, K. D. and Phillips, S. K. and Qian, X. and Qiang, Y. and Quinn, B. and Rakhman, A. and Reimer, P. E. and Rider, K. and Riordan, S. and Roche, J. and Rubin, J. and Russo, G. and Saenboonruang, K. and Saha, A. and Sawatzky, B. and Shahinyan, A. and Silwal, R. and Sirca, S. and Souder, P. A. and Suleiman, R. and Sulkosky, V. and Sutera, C. M. and Tobias, W. A. and Urciuoli, G. M. and Waidyawansa, B. and Wojtsekhowski, B. and Ye, L. and Zhao, B. and Zheng, X.},
abstractNote = {Symmetry permeates nature and is fundamental to all laws of physics. One example is parity (mirror) symmetry, which implies that flipping left and right does not change the laws of physics. Laws for electromagnetism, gravity and the subatomic strong force respect parity symmetry, but the subatomic weak force does not. Historically, parity violation in electron scattering has been important in establishing (and now testing) the standard model of particle physics. One particular set of quantities accessible through measurements of parity-violating electron scattering are the effective weak couplings C2q, sensitive to the quarks chirality preference when participating in the weak force, which have been measured directly3, 4 only once in the past 40?years. Here we report a measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry in electron-quark scattering, which yields a determination of 2C2u???C2d (where u and d denote up and down quarks, respectively) with a precision increased by a factor of five relative to the earlier result. These results provide evidence with greater than 95 per cent confidence that the C2q couplings are non-zero, as predicted by the electroweak theory. They lead to constraints on new parity-violating interactions beyond the standard model, particularly those due to quark chirality. Whereas contemporary particle physics research is focused on high-energy colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider, our results provide specific chirality information on electroweak theory that is difficult to obtain at high energies. Our measurement is relatively free of ambiguity in its interpretation, and opens the door to even more precise measurements in the future.},
doi = {10.1038/nature12964},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1184660}, journal = {Nature},
issn = {0028-0836},
number = 7486,
volume = 506,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Feb 05 00:00:00 EST 2014},
month = {Wed Feb 05 00:00:00 EST 2014}
}