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Probing Novel Properties Of Nucleons And Nuclei Via Parity Violating Electron Scattering, Luis Rafael Mercado

Open Access Dissertations

This thesis reports on two experiments conducted by the HAPPEx (Hall A Proton Parity Experiment) collaboration at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. For both, the weak neutral current interaction (WNC, mediated by the Z0 boson) is used to probe novel properties of hadronic targets. The WNC interaction amplitude is extracted by measuring the parity-violating asymmetry in the elastic scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons off unpolarized target hadrons. HAPPEx-III, conducted in the Fall of 2009, used a liquid hydrogen target at a momentum transfer of Q² = 0.62 GeV². The measured asymmetry was used to set new …