arXiv subjects

M. Mihovilovič

Publications and source records attributed to M. Mihovilovič.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Backward-angle electroproduction of $η'$ mesons off protons at $W=2.13~\text{GeV}$ and $Q^{2}=0.46~\left(\text{GeV}/c\right)^{2}$

The electroproduction of $η'$ mesons from a $\mathrm{^{1}H}$ target at $W=2.13~\text{GeV}$, $Q^{2} = 0.46~\left( \text{GeV}/c\right)^{2}$ and $\cos θ^{\text{CM}}_{γ^{*}η'} \approx -1$ has been experimentally measured. The differential cross section of virtual-photoproduction has been obtained as $4.4 \pm 0.8 ~\left( \text{stat.} \right) \pm 0.4 ~\left( \text{sys.} \right)~ \text{nb/sr}$ in the One-Photon-Exchange Approximation. This value is one-sixth of that of real-photoproduction at backward angles. A comparison with newly-developed isobar model calculations not only shows validity of the theoretical framewark employed, but also imposes new constrains on coupling strength between the $η'p$ final state and nucleon resonances.

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arXiv2025

Inclusive studies of two- and three-nucleon short-range correlations in $^3$H and $^3$He

Inclusive electron scattering at carefully chosen kinematics can isolate scattering from the high-momentum nucleons in short-range correlations (SRCs). SRCs are produced by the hard, short-distance interactions of nucleons in the nucleus, and because the two-nucleon (2N) SRCs arise from the same N-N interaction in all nuclei, the cross section in the SRC-dominated regime is identical up to an overall scaling factor. This scaling behavior has been used to identify SRC dominance and to measure the contribution of SRCs in a wide range of nuclei. We examine this scaling behavior over a range of momentum transfers using new data on $^2$H, $^3$H, and $^3$He, and find an expanded scaling region compared to heavy nuclei. Motivated by this improved scaling, we examine the $^3$H and $^3$He data in kinematics where three-nucleon SRCs may play an important role. The data for the largest struck nucleon momenta are consistent with isolation of scattering from three-nucleon SRCs, and suggest that the very highest momentum nucleons in $^3$He have a nearly isospin-independent momentum configuration.

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arXiv2024

Nuclear density dependence of polarization transfer in quasi-elastic ${\rm A}(\vec{e},e' \vec{p})$ reactions

The ratio of the transverse and longitudinal component of polarization transfer to protons in the quasi-elastic $(\vec{e}, e^{\prime} \vec{p}\,)$ reaction, $P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z$, is sensitive to the proton's electromagnetic form factor ratio, $G_E/G_M$. To explore density-dependent in-medium modifications, a comparison of polarization transfer ratios involving protons from distinct nuclear shells, each with different local nuclear densities, has been proposed. In this study, we present such comparisons between four shells, $1s_{1/2}$, $1p_{3/2}$ in $^{12}\mathrm{C}$ and $1d_{3/2}$, $2s_{1/2}$ in $^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$. In an effort to account for other many-body effects that may differ between shells, we use a state-of-the-art relativistic distorted-wave impulse-approximation (RDWIA) calculation and present the double ratios, $(P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z)_{\rm Data}/(P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z)_{\rm RDWIA}$ as well as the super ratios, $\left[(P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z)_{\rm A}/(P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z)_{\rm B}\right]_{\rm Data}/\left[(P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z)_{\rm A}/(P^{\prime}_x/P^{\prime}_z)_{\rm B}\right]_{\rm RDWIA}$, for chosen shells A and B, as a function of effective local nuclear densities. We find that double ratios for individual shells show a dependence on the probed effective nuclear densities. Studying the ratios, we observed a systematic variation between pairs of higher- and lower-density shells.

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arXiv2024

Electroproduction of the Lambda/Sigma^0 hyperons at Q^2~0.5 (GeV/c)^2 at forward angles

In 2018, the E12-17-003 experiment was conducted at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) to explore the possible existence of an nnLambda state in the reconstructed missing mass distribution from a tritium gas target [K. N. Suzuki et al., Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2022, 013D01 (2022), B. Pandey et al., Phys. Rev. C 105, L051001 (2022)]. As part of this investigation, data was also collected using a gaseous hydrogen target, not only for a precise absolute mass scale calibration but also for the study of Lambda/Sigma^0 electroproduction. This dataset was acquired at Q^2~0.5 (GeV/c)^2, W=2.14 GeV, and theta_{gamma K}^{c.m.}~8 deg. It covers forward angles where photoproduction data is scarce and a low-Q^2 region that is of interest for hypernuclear experiments. On the other hand, this kinematic region is at a slightly higher Q^2 than previous hypernuclear experiments, thus providing crucial information for understanding the Q^2 dependence of the differential cross sections for Lambda/Sigma^0 hyperon electroproduction. This paper reports on the Q^2 dependence of the differential cross section for the e + p -> e' + K^+ + Lambda/Sigma^0 reaction in the 0.2-0.8 (GeV/c)^2, and provides comparisons with the currently available theoretical models.

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arXiv2024

Measurement of the $\mathrm{{}^{12}C}(e,e')$ cross sections at $Q^2=0.8\,\mathrm{GeV}^2/c^2$

We present the findings of a study based on a new inelastic electron-scattering experiment on the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ nucleus focusing on the kinematic region of $Q^2=0.8\,\mathrm{GeV}^2/{c}^2$. The measured cross section is sensitive to the transverse response function and provides a stringent test of theoretical models, as well as of the theoretical assumptions made in Monte-Carlo event-generator codes developed for the interpretation of neutrino-nucleus experiments, such as DUNE and HyperK. We find that modern generators such as GENIE and GiBUU reproduce our new experimental data within 10$\%$.

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arXiv2024

Measurement of polarization transfer in the quasi-elastic $^{40}{\rm Ca}(\vec{e},e' \vec{p})$ process

Polarization transfer to a bound proton in polarized electron knock-out reactions, $\mathrm{A}(\vec{e},e^{\prime}\vec{p})$, is a powerful tool to look for in-medium modification of the bound proton. It requires comparison to calculations which consider the many-body effects accompanying the quasi-free process. We report here measured components $P_x^{\prime}$, $P_z^{\prime}$, and their ratio $P_x^{\prime}/P_z^{\prime}$, of polarization transfer to protons bound in $^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$, which is described well by the shell model and for which reliable calculations are available. While the calculations capture the essence of the data, our statistical precision allows us to observe deviations which cannot be explained by simple scaling, including by varying the proton electromagnetic form factor ratio $G_E/G_M$. We further explore the deviations of the ratio of the polarization transfer components from that of a free proton, $(P_x^{\prime}/P_z^{\prime})_{\rm A}/(P_x^{\prime}/P_z^{\prime})_{\rm H}$, and its dependence on the bound-proton virtuality.

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arXiv2023

Measurement of the Generalized Polarizabilities of the Proton in Virtual Compton Scattering

We propose to conduct a measurement of the Virtual Compton Scattering reaction in Hall C that will allow the precise extraction of the two scalar Generalized Polarizabilities (GPs) of the proton in the region of $Q^2=0.05~(GeV/c)^2$ to $Q^2=0.50~(GeV/c)^2$. The Generalized Polarizabilities are fundamental properties of the proton, that characterize the system's response to an external electromagnetic (EM) field. They describe how easily the charge and magnetization distributions inside the system are distorted by the EM field, mapping out the resulting deformation of the densities in the proton. As such, they reveal unique information regarding the underlying system dynamics and provide a key for decoding the proton structure in terms of the theory of the strong interaction that binds its elementary quark and gluon constituents together. Recent measurements of the proton GPs have challenged the theoretical predictions, particularly in regard to the electric polarizability. The magnetic GP, on the other hand, can provide valuable insight to the competing paramagnetic and diamagnetic contributions in the proton, but it is poorly known within the region where the interplay of these processes is very dynamic and rapidly changing.The unique capabilities of Hall C, namely the high resolution of the spectrometers combined with the ability to place the spectrometers in small angles, will allow to pin down the dynamic signature of the GPs through high precision measurements combined with a fine mapping as a function of $Q^2$. The experimental setup utilizes standard Hall C equipment, as was previously employed in the VCS-I (E12-15-001) experiment, namely the HMS and SHMS spectrometers and a 10 cm liquid hydrogen target. A total of 59 days of unpolarized 75 $μA$ electron beam with energy of 1100 MeV (6 days) and 2200 MeV (53 days) is requested for this experiment.

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arXiv2023

Non-forward radiative corrections to electron-carbon scattering

Radiative corrections to elastic scattering represent an important part of the interpretation of electron-induced nuclear reactions at small energy transfers, where they make for a dominant part of background. Here we present and validate a new event generator for mimicking QED radiative processes in electron-carbon scattering that exactly calculates the coherent sum of the Bethe-Heitler amplitudes for the leading diagrams and can be reliably employed for a more robust determination of inelastic cross-sections.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Revealing the short-range structure of the "mirror nuclei" $^3$H and $^3$He

When protons and neutrons (nucleons) are bound into atomic nuclei, they are close enough together to feel significant attraction, or repulsion, from the strong, short-distance part of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. These strong interactions lead to hard collisions between nucleons, generating pairs of highly-energetic nucleons referred to as short-range correlations (SRCs). SRCs are an important but relatively poorly understood part of nuclear structure and mapping out the strength and isospin structure (neutron-proton vs proton-proton pairs) of these virtual excitations is thus critical input for modeling a range of nuclear, particle, and astrophysics measurements. Hitherto measurements used two-nucleon knockout or ``triple-coincidence'' reactions to measure the relative contribution of np- and pp-SRCs by knocking out a proton from the SRC and detecting its partner nucleon (proton or neutron). These measurementsshow that SRCs are almost exclusively np pairs, but had limited statistics and required large model-dependent final-state interaction (FSI) corrections. We report on the first measurement using inclusive scattering from the mirror nuclei $^3$H and $^3$He to extract the np/pp ratio of SRCs in the A=3 system. We obtain a measure of the np/pp SRC ratio that is an order of magnitude more precise than previous experiments, and find a dramatic deviation from the near-total np dominance observed in heavy nuclei. This result implies an unexpected structure in the high-momentum wavefunction for $^3$He and $^3$H. Understanding these results will improve our understanding of the short-range part of the N-N interaction.

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arXiv2022

The cross-section measurement for the $^3{\textrm H}(e,e'K^+)nnΛ$ reaction

The small binding energy of the hypertrition leads to predictions of non-existence of bound hypernuclei for isotriplet three-body systems such as $nnΛ$. However, invariant mass spectroscopy at GSI has reported events that may be interpreted as the bound $nnΛ$ state. The $nnΛ$ state was sought by missing-mass spectroscopy via the $(e,e'K^+)$ reaction at Jefferson Lab's experimental Hall A. The present experiment has higher sensitivity to the $nnΛ$-state investigation in terms of better precision by a factor of about three. The analysis shown in this article focuses on the derivation of the reaction cross-section for the $^3{\rm{H}}(γ^{*},K^+)\textrm{X}$ reaction. Events that were detected in an acceptance, where a Monte Carlo simulation could reproduce the data well ($|δp/p| < 4\%$), were analyzed to minimize the systematic uncertainty. No significant structures were observed with the acceptance cuts, and the upper limits of the production cross-section of the $nnΛ$ state were obtained to be $21$ and $31~\rm{nb/sr}$ at the $90\%$ confidence level when theoretical predictions of $(-B_Λ, Γ) = (0.25,0.8)$ and $(0.55, 4.7)$ MeV, respectively, were assumed. The cross-section result provides valuable information for examining the existence of $nnΛ$.

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arXiv2021

Operation and characterization of a windowless gas jet target in high-intensity electron beams

A cryogenic supersonic gas jet target was developed for the MAGIX experiment at the high-intensity electron accelerator MESA. It will be operated as an internal, windowless target in the energy-recovering recirculation arc of the accelerator with different target gases, e.g., hydrogen, deuterium, helium, oxygen, argon, or xenon. Detailed studies have been carried out at the existing A1 multi-spectrometer facility at the electron accelerator MAMI. This paper focuses on the developed handling procedures and diagnostic tools, and on the performance of the gas jet target under beam conditions. Considering the special features of this type of target, it proves to be well suited for a new generation of high-precision electron scattering experiments at high-intensity electron accelerators.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2021

Electron beam studies of light collection in a scintillating counter with embedded fibers

The light collection of several fiber configurations embedded in a box-shaped plastic scintillating counter was studied by scanning with minimum ionizing electrons. The light was read out by silicon photomultipliers at both ends. The light yield produced by the 855-MeV beam of the Mainz Microtron showed a strong dependence on the transverse distance from the beam position to the fibers. The observations were modeled by attributing the collection of indirect light inside of the counter and of direct light reaching a fiber to the total light yield. The light collection with fibers was compared to that of a scintillating counter without fibers. These studies were carried out within the development of plastic scintillating detectors as an active veto system for the DarkMESA electron beam-dump experiment that will search for light dark matter particles in the MeV mass range.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2021

Measurement of the Generalized Polarizabilities of the Proton at Intermediate $Q^2$

Background: Generalized polarizabilities (GPs) are important observables to describe the nucleon structure, and measurements of these observables are still scarce. Purpose: This paper presents details of a virtual Compton scattering (VCS) experiment, performed at the A1 setup at the Mainz Microtron by studying the $e p \to e p γ$ reaction. The article focuses on selected aspects of the analysis. Method: The experiment extracted the $P_{LL} -P_{TT} / ε$ and $P_{LT}$ structure functions, as well as the electric and magnetic GPs of the proton, at three new values of the four-momentum transfer squared $Q^2$: 0.10, 0.20 and 0.45 GeV$^2$. Results: We emphasize the importance of the calibration of experimental parameters. The behavior of the measured $e p \to e p γ$ cross section is presented and compared to the theory. A detailed investigation of the polarizability fits reveals part of their complexity, in connection with the higher-order terms of the low-energy expansion. Conclusions: The presented aspects are elements which contribute to minimize the systematic uncertainties and improve the precision of the physics results.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2020

Comparison of recoil polarization in the $^{12}{\rm C}(\vec{e},{e}'\vec{p})$ process for protons extracted from $s$ and $p$ shell

We present first measurements of the double ratio of the polarization transfer components $(P^{\prime}_{\!x} \!/ P^{\prime}_{\!z} )_p/ (P^{\prime}_{\!x} \!/ P^{\prime}_{\!z} )_s$ for knock-out protons from $s$ and $p$ shells in $^{12}{\rm C}$ measured by the $^{12}{\rm C}(\vec{e},{e}'\vec{p}\,)$ reaction in quasi-elastic kinematics. The data are compared to theoretical predictions in relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation. Our results show that differences between $s$- and $p$-shell protons, observed when compared at the same initial momentum (missing momentum) largely disappear when the comparison is done at the same proton virtuality. We observe no density-dependent medium modifications for protons from $s$ and $p$ shells with the same virtuality in spite of the large differences in the respective nuclear densities.

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arXiv2019

New Insight in the $Q^2$-Dependence of Proton Generalized Polarizabilities

Virtual Compton scattering on the proton has been investigated at three yet unexplored values of the four-momentum transfer $Q^2$: 0.10, 0.20 and 0.45 GeV$^2$, at the Mainz Microtron. Fits performed using either the low-energy theorem or dispersion relations allowed the extraction of the structure functions $P_{LL} -P_{TT} / ε$ and $P_{LT}$, as well as the electric and magnetic generalized polarizabilities $α_{E1}(Q^2)$ and $β_{M1}(Q^2)$. These new results show a smooth and rapid fall-off of $α_{E1}(Q^2)$, in contrast to previous measurements at $Q^2$ = 0.33 GeV$^2$, and provide for the first time a precise mapping of $β_{M1}(Q^2)$ in the low-$Q^2$ region.

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arXiv2019

Precision Measurements of $A_1^n$ in the Deep Inelastic Regime

We have performed precision measurements of the double-spin virtual-photon asymmetry $A_1$ on the neutron in the deep inelastic scattering regime, using an open-geometry, large-acceptance spectrometer. Our data cover a wide kinematic range $0.277 \leq x \leq 0.548$ at an average $Q^2$ value of 3.078~(GeV/c)$^2$, doubling the available high-precision neutron data in this $x$ range. We have combined our results with world data on proton targets to extract the ratio of polarized-to-unpolarized parton distribution functions for up quarks and for down quarks in the same kinematic range. Our data are consistent with a previous observation of an $A_1^n$ zero crossing near $x=0.5$. We find no evidence of a transition to a positive slope in $(Δd + Δ\bar{d})/(d + \bar{d})$ up to $x=0.548$.

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arXiv2019

Physics with Positron Beams at Jefferson Lab 12 GeV

Positron beams, both polarized and unpolarized, are identified as essential ingredients for the experimental program at the next generation of lepton accelerators. In the context of the Hadronic Physics program at the Jefferson Laboratory (JLab), positron beams are complementary, even essential, tools for a precise understanding of the electromagnetic structure of the nucleon, in both the elastic and the deep-inelastic regimes. For instance, elastic scattering of (un)polarized electrons and positrons off the nucleon allows for a model independent determination of the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon. Also, the deeply virtual Compton scattering of (un)polarized electrons and positrons allows us to separate unambiguously the different contributions to the cross section of the lepto-production of photons, enabling an accurate determination of the nucleon Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs), and providing an access to its Gravitational Form Factors. Furthermore, positron beams offer the possibility of alternative tests of the Standard Model through the search of a dark photon or the precise measurement of electroweak couplings. This letter proposes to develop an experimental positron program at JLab to perform unique high impact measurements with respect to the two-photon exchange problem, the determination of the proton and the neutron GPDs, and the search for the $A^{\prime}$ dark photon.

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arXiv2019

The influence of Fermi motion on the comparison of the polarization transfer to a proton in elastic $\vec ep$ and quasi-elastic $\vec eA$ scattering

A comparison between polarization-transfer to a bound proton in quasi-free kinematics by the A$(\vec{e},e'\vec p)$ knockout reaction and that in elastic scattering off a free proton can provide information on the characteristics of the bound proton. In the past the reported measurements have been compared to those of a free proton with zero initial momentum. We introduce, for the first time, expressions for the polarization-transfer components when the proton is initially in motion and compare them to the $^2$H data measured at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI). We show the ratios of the transverse ($P_x$) and longitudinal ($P_z$) components of the polarization transfer in $^2\textrm{H}(\vec{e},e'\vec p)\textrm{n}$, to those of elastic scattering off a "moving proton", assuming the proton's initial (Fermi) momentum equals the negative missing momentum in the measured reaction. We found that the correction due to the proton motion is up to 20\% at high missing momentum. However the effect on the double ratio $\frac{(P_x/P_z)^A}{(P_x/P_z)^{^1\!\textrm{H}}}$ is largely canceled out, as shown for both $^2$H and $^{12}$C data. This implies that the kinematics is not the primary cause for the deviations between quasi-elastic and elastic scattering reported previously.

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