Physics Letters B 771 (2017) 194–198
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Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
First measurement of proton’s charge form factor at very low Q
2
with initial state radiation
M. Mihovilovi
ˇ
c
a,b
, A.B. Weber
a
, P. Achenbach
a
, T. Beranek
a
, J. Beri
ˇ
ci
ˇ
c
b
, J.C. Bernauer
c
,
R. Böhm
a
, D. Bosnar
d
, M. Cardinali
a
, L. Correa
e
, L. Debenjak
b
, A. Denig
a
, M.O. Distler
a
,
A. Esser
a
, M.I. Ferretti Bondy
a
, H. Fonvieille
e
, J.M. Friedrich
f
, I. Friš
ˇ
ci
´
c
d
, K. Griffioen
g
,
M. Hoek
a
, S. Kegel
a
, Y. Kohl
a
, H. Merkel
a,∗
, D.G. Middleton
a
, U. Müller
a
, L. Nungesser
a
,
J. Pochodzalla
a
, M. Rohrbeck
a
, S. Sánchez Majos
a
, B.S. Schlimme
a
, M. Schoth
a
, F. Schulz
a
,
C. Sfienti
a
, S. Širca
h,b
, S. Štajner
b
, M. Thiel
a
, A. Tyukin
a
, M. Vanderhaeghen
a
,
M. Weinriefer
a
a
Institut für Kernphysik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, DE-55128 Mainz, Germany
b
Jožef Stefan Institute, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
c
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
d
Department of Physics, University of Zagreb, HR-10002 Zagreb, Croatia
e
Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, BP 10448, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France
f
Technische Universität München, Physik Department, 85748 Garching, Germany
g
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, USA
h
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
30 March 2017
Accepted
11 May 2017
Available
online 15 May 2017
Editor:
V. Metag
Keywords:
Initial
state radiation
Proton
Form
factor
Radiative
corrections
We report on a new experimental method based on initial-state radiation (ISR) in e–p scattering, which
exploits the radiative tail of the elastic peak to study the properties of electromagnetic processes and to
extract the proton charge form factor (G
p
E
) at extremely small Q
2
. The ISR technique was implemented
in an experiment at the three-spectrometer facility of the Mainz Microtron (MAMI). This led to a precise
validation of radiative corrections far away from elastic line and provided first measurements of G
p
E
for
0.001 ≤ Q
2
≤ 0.004 (GeV/c)
2
.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
The radius of the proton as a fundamental subatomic constant
has recently received immense attention. The CODATA [1] value of
0.8751(61) fm was compiled from electron scattering and atomic
Lamb shift measurements. Both approaches gave consistent results.
This value however, does not agree with the findings of very pre-
cise
Lamb shift measurements in muonic hydrogen [2,3], which
report a value of 0.84087(39) fm, which is a 6 σ discrepancy with
respect to the CODATA value. This discrepancy cannot be explained
within existing physics theories, nor can it be interpreted as an ex-
perimental
error. To provide further insight into the matter, several
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail
address: merkel@kph.uni-mainz.de (H. Merkel).
new spectroscopic and scattering experiments are underway. They
aim to investigate different aspects of the problem [4–6].
In
a scattering experiment the charge radius of the proton is
typically determined by measuring cross sections for elastic scat-
tering
of electrons from hydrogen, which depend on G
p
E
and carry
information about the charge distribution in the proton. The pro-
ton
charge radius is given by
r
2
p
≡−6
¯
h
2
dG
p
E
dQ
2
Q
2
=0
, (1)
where Q
2
is the negative square of the four-momentum trans-
ferred
to the hadron. Due to the limited reach of existing data
sets (Q
2
> 0.004 GeV
2
/c
2
) the slope of G
p
E
at Q
2
= 0needs to
be evaluated from an extrapolated fit of the measured data. The
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2017.05.031
0370-2693/
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.