arXiv subjects

M. Paolone

Publications and source records attributed to M. Paolone.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Polarized Structure Function $σ_{LT'}$ from $π^0 p$ Electroproduction Data in the Resonance Region at $0.4$ GeV$^2 < Q^2 < 1.0$ GeV$^2$

The first results on the $σ_{LT'}$ structure function in exclusive $π^0p$ electroproduction at invariant masses of the final state of 1.5 GeV $<$ $W$ $<$ 1.8 GeV and in the range of photon virtualities 0.4 GeV$^2 < Q^2 < 1.0$ GeV$^2$ were obtained from data on beam spin asymmetries and differential cross sections measured with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab. The Legendre moments determined from the $σ_{LT'}$ structure function have demonstrated sensitivity to the contributions from the nucleon resonances in the second and third resonance regions. These new data on the beam spin asymmetries in $π^0p$ electroproduction extend the opportunities for the extraction of the nucleon resonance electroexcitation amplitudes in the mass range above 1.6 GeV.

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arXiv2021

Measurement of deeply virtual Compton scattering off Helium-4 with CLAS at Jefferson Lab

We report on the measurement of the beam spin asymmetry in the deeply virtual Compton scattering off $^4$He using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at Jefferson Lab using a 6 GeV longitudinally polarized electron beam incident on a pressurized $^4$He gaseous target. We detail the method used to ensure the exclusivity of the measured reactions, in particular the upgrade of CLAS with a radial time projection chamber to detect the low-energy recoiling $^4$He nuclei and an inner calorimeter to extend the photon detection acceptance at forward angles. Our results confirm the theoretically predicted enhancement of the coherent ($e^4$He$~\to~e'$$^4$He$'γ'$) beam spin asymmetries compared to those observed on the free proton, while the incoherent ($e^4$He$~\to~e'$p$'γ'$X$'$) asymmetries exhibit a 30$\%$ suppression. From the coherent data, we were able to extract, in a model-independent way, the real and imaginary parts of the only $^4$He Compton form factor, $\cal H_A$, leading the way toward 3D imaging of the partonic structure of nuclei.

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arXiv2021

Measurement of the Nucleon $F^n_2/F^p_2$ Structure Function Ratio by the Jefferson Lab MARATHON Tritium/Helium-3 Deep Inelastic Scattering Experiment

The ratio of the nucleon $F_2$ structure functions, $F_2^n/F_2^p$, is determined by the MARATHON experiment from measurements of deep inelastic scattering of electrons from $^3$H and $^3$He nuclei. The experiment was performed in the Hall A Facility of Jefferson Lab and used two high resolution spectrometers for electron detection, and a cryogenic target system which included a low-activity tritium cell. The data analysis used a novel technique exploiting the mirror symmetry of the two nuclei, which essentially eliminates many theoretical uncertainties in the extraction of the ratio. The results, which cover the Bjorken scaling variable range $0.19 < x < 0.83$, represent a significant improvement compared to previous SLAC and Jefferson Lab measurements for the ratio. They are compared to recent theoretical calculations and empirical determinations of the $F_2^n/F_2^p$ ratio.

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arXiv2021

Measurement of the neutron charge radius and the role of its constituents

The neutron is a cornerstone in our depiction of the visible universe. Despite the neutron zero-net electric charge, the asymmetric distribution of the positively- (up) and negatively-charged (down) quarks, a result of the complex quark-gluon dynamics, lead to a negative value for its squared charge radius, $\langle r_{\rm n}^2 \rangle$. The precise measurement of the neutron's charge radius thus emerges as an essential part of unraveling its structure. Here we report on a $\langle r_{\rm n}^2 \rangle$ measurement, based on the extraction of the neutron electric form factor, $G_{\rm E}^{\rm n}$, at low four-momentum transfer squared $(Q^2)$ by exploiting the long known connection between the $N \rightarrow Δ$ quadrupole transitions and the neutron electric form factor. Our result, $\langle r_{\rm n}^2 \rangle = -0.110 \pm0.008~({\rm fm}^2)$, addresses long standing unresolved discrepancies in the $\langle r_{\rm n}^2 \rangle$ determination. The dynamics of the strong nuclear force can be viewed through the precise picture of the neutron's constituent distributions that result into the non-zero $\langle r_{\rm n}^2 \rangle$ value.

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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.

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arXiv2021

Charge radii of the nucleon from its flavor dependent Dirac form factors

We have determined the proton and the neutron charge radii from a global analysis of the proton and the neutron elastic form factors, after first performing a flavor decomposition of these form factors under charge symmetry in the light cone frame formulation. We then extracted the transverse mean-square radii of the flavor dependent quark distributions. In turn, these are related in a model-independent way to the proton and neutron charge radii but allow us to take into account motion effects of the recoiling nucleon for data at finite but high momentum transfer. In the proton case we find $\langle r_p \rangle = 0.852 \pm0.002_{\rm (stat.)} \pm0.009_{\rm (syst.)}~({\rm fm})$, consistent with the proton charge radius obtained from muonic hydrogen spectroscopy \cite{pohl:2010,antog2013}. The current method improves on the precision of the $\langle r_p \rangle$ extraction based on the form factor measurements. Furthermore, we find no discrepancy in the $\langle r_p \rangle$ determination among the different electron scattering measurements, all of which, utilizing the current method of extraction, result in a value that is consistent with the smallest $\langle r_p \rangle$ extraction from the electron scattering measurements \cite{Xiong:2019umf}. Concerning the neutron case, past results relied solely on the neutron-electron scattering length measurements, which suffer from an underestimation of underlying systematic uncertainties inherent to the extraction technique. Utilizing the present method we have performed the first extraction of the neutron charge radius based on nucleon form factor data, and we find $\langle r_n^2 \rangle = -0.122 \pm0.004_{\rm (stat.)} \pm0.010_{\rm (syst.)}~({\rm fm}^2)$.

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arXiv2020

Dispersive Corrections to the Born Approximation in Elastic Electron-Nucleus Scattering in the Intermediate Energy Regime

Measurements of elastic electron scattering data within the past decade have highlighted two-photon exchange contributions as a necessary ingredient in theoretical calculations to precisely evaluate hydrogen elastic scattering cross sections. This correction can modify the cross section at the few percent level. In contrast, dispersive effects can cause significantly larger changes from the Born approximation. The purpose of this experiment is to extract the carbon-12 elastic cross section around the first diffraction minimum, where the Born term contributions to the cross section are small to maximize the sensitivity to dispersive effects. The analysis uses the LEDEX data from the high resolution Jefferson Lab Hall A spectrometers to extract the cross sections near the first diffraction minimum of 12C at beam energies of 362 MeV and 685 MeV. The results are in very good agreement with previous world data, although with less precision. The average deviation from a static nuclear charge distribution expected from linear and quadratic fits indicate a 30.6% contribution of dispersive effects to the cross section at 1 GeV. The magnitude of the dispersive effects near the first diffraction minimum of 12C has been confirmed to be large with a strong energy dependence and could account for a large fraction of the magnitude for the observed quenching of the longitudinal nuclear response. These effects could also be important for nuclei radii extracted from parity-violating asymmetries measured near a diffraction minimum.

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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

Virtual Compton Scattering measurements in the nucleon resonance region

We report on new measurements of the electric Generalized Polarizability (GP) of the proton $α_E$ in a kinematic region where a puzzling dependence on momentum transfer has been observed, and we have found that $α_E = (5.3 \pm 0.6_{stat} \pm 1.3_{sys})~10^{-4} fm^3$ at $Q^2=0.20~(GeV/c)^2$. The new measurements, when considered along with the rest of the world data, suggest that $α_E$ can be described by either a local plateau or by an enhancement in the region $Q^2=0.20~(GeV/c)^2$ to $0.33~(GeV/c)^2$. The experiment also provides the first measurement of the Coulomb quadrupole amplitude in the $N \rightarrow Δ$ transition through the exploration of the $p(e,e'p)γ$ reaction. The new measurement gives $CMR = (-4.4 \pm 0.8_{stat} \pm 0.6_{sys})~\%$ at $Q^2=0.20~(GeV/c)^2$ and is consistent with the results from the pion electroproduction world data. It has been obtained using a completely different extraction method, and therefore represents a strong validation test of the world data model uncertainties.

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arXiv2018

First results on nucleon resonance photocouplings from the $γp \to π^+π^-p$ reaction

We report the first experimental measurements of the nine 1-fold differential cross sections for the $γp \to π^+π^-p$ reaction, obtained with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory. The measurements cover the invariant mass range of the final state hadrons from 1.6~GeV~$<W<$~2.0~GeV. For the first time the photocouplings of all prominent nucleon resonances in this mass range have been extracted from this exclusive channel. Photoproduction of two charged pions is of particular importance for the evaluation of the photocouplings for the $Δ(1620)1/2^-$, $Δ(1700)3/2^-$, $N(1720)3/2^+$, and $Δ(1905)5/2^+$ resonances, which have dominant decays into the $ππN$ final states rather than the more extensively studied single meson decay channels.

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arXiv2018

Measurement of the helicity asymmetry $E$ in $ω\toπ^+π^-π^0$ photoproduction

The double-polarization observable $E$ was studied for the reaction $γp\to pω$ using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the longitudinally-polarized frozen-spin target (FROST). The observable was measured from the charged decay mode of the meson, $ω\toπ^+π^-π^0$, using a circularly-polarized tagged-photon beam with energies ranging from the $ω$ threshold at 1.1 to 2.3 GeV. A partial-wave analysis within the Bonn-Gatchina framework found dominant contributions from the $3/2^+$ partial wave near threshold, which is identified with the sub-threshold $N(1720)\,3/2^+$ nucleon resonance. To describe the entire data set, which consisted of $ω$ differential cross sections and a large variety of polarization observables, further contributions from other nucleon resonances were found to be necessary. With respect to non-resonant mechanisms, $π$ exchange in the $t$-channel was found to remain small across the analyzed energy range, while pomeron $t$-channel exchange gradually grew from the reaction threshold to dominate all other contributions above $W \approx 2$ GeV.

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arXiv2017

Double $K_S^0$ Photoproduction off the Proton at CLAS

The $f_0$(1500) meson resonance is one of several contenders to have significant mixing with the lightest glueball. This resonance is well established from several previous experiments. Here we present the first photoproduction data for the $f_0$(1500) via decay into the $K_S^0 K_S^0$ channel using the CLAS detector. The reaction $γp$ -> $f_0 p$ -> $K_S^0 K_S^0 p$, where J = 0, 2, was measured with photon energies from 2.7 to 5.1 GeV. A clear peak is seen at 1500 MeV in the background subtracted invariant mass spectra of the two kaons. This is enhanced if the measured 4-momentum transfer to the proton target is restricted to be less than 1.0 GeV2. By comparing data with simulations, it can be concluded that the peak at 1500 MeV is produced primarily at low t, which is consistent with a t-channel production mechanism.

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arXiv2017

Target and Double Spin Asymmetries of Deeply Virtual $π^0$ Production with a Longitudinally Polarized Proton Target and CLAS

The target and double spin asymmetries of the exclusive pseudoscalar channel $\vec e\vec p\to epπ^0$ were measured for the first time in the deep-inelastic regime using a longitudinally polarized 5.9 GeV electron beam and a longitudinally polarized proton target at Jefferson Lab with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS). The data were collected over a large kinematic phase space and divided into 110 four-dimensional bins of $Q^2$, $x_B$, $-t$ and $ϕ$. Large values of asymmetry moments clearly indicate a substantial contribution to the polarized structure functions from transverse virtual photon amplitudes. The interpretation of experimental data in terms of generalized parton distributions (GPDs) provides the first insight on the chiral-odd GPDs $\tilde{H}_T$ and $E_T$, and complement previous measurements of unpolarized structure functions sensitive to the GPDs $H_T$ and $\bar E_T$. These data provide necessary constraints for chiral-odd GPD parametrizations and will strongly influence existing theoretical handbag models.

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arXiv2016

A Search for the LHCb Charmed 'Pentaquark' using Photo-Production of $J/ψ$ at Threshold in Hall C at Jefferson Lab

We propose to measure the photo-production cross section of $J/ψ$ near threshold, in search of the recently observed LHCb hidden-charm resonances $P_c$(4380) and $P_c$(4450) consistent with 'pentaquarks'. The observation of these resonances in photo-production will provide strong evidence of the true resonance nature of the LHCb states, distinguishing them from kinematic enhancements. A bremsstrahlung photon beam produced with an 11 GeV electron beam at CEBAF covers the energy range of $J/ψ$ production from the threshold photo-production energy of 8.2 GeV, to an energy beyond the presumed $P_c$(4450) resonance. The experiment will be carried out in Hall C at Jefferson Lab using a 50μA electron beam incident on a 9% copper radiator. The resulting photon beam passes through a 15 cm liquid hydrogen target, producing $J/ψ$ mesons through a diffractive process in the $t$-channel, or through a resonant process in the $s$- and $u$-channel. The decay $e^+e^-$ pair of the $J/ψ$ will be detected in coincidence using the two high-momentum spectrometers of Hall C. The spectrometer settings have been optimized to distinguish the resonant $s$- and $u$-channel production from the diffractive $t$-channel $J/ψ$ production. The $s$- and $u$-channel production of the charmed 5-quark resonance dominates the $t$-distribution at large $t$. The momentum and angular resolution of the spectrometers is sufficient to observe a clear resonance enhancement in the total cross section and $t$-distribution. We request a total of 11 days of beam time with 9 days to carry the main experiment and 2 days to acquire the needed $t$-channel elastic $J/ψ$ production data for a calibration measurement. This calibration measurement in itself will greatly enhance our knowledge of $t$-channel elastic $J/ψ$ production near threshold.

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arXiv2016

Electroexcitation of the $Δ^{+}(1232)$ at low momentum transfer

We report on new p$(e,e^\prime p)π^\circ$ measurements at the $Δ^{+}(1232)$ resonance at the low momentum transfer region. The mesonic cloud dynamics is predicted to be dominant and rapidly changing in this kinematic region offering a test bed for chiral effective field theory calculations. The new data explore the low $Q^2$ dependence of the resonant quadrupole amplitudes while extending the measurements of the Coulomb quadrupole amplitude to the lowest momentum transfer ever reached. The results disagree with predictions of constituent quark models and are in reasonable agreement with dynamical calculations that include pion cloud effects, chiral effective field theory and lattice calculations. The reported measurements suggest that improvement is required to the theoretical calculations and provide valuable input that will allow their refinements.

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arXiv2011

Low Q^2 measurements of the proton form factor ratio $mu_p G_E / G_M$

We present an updated extraction of the proton electromagnetic form factor ratio, mu_p G_E/G_M, at low Q^2. The form factors are sensitive to the spatial distribution of the proton, and precise measurements can be used to constrain models of the proton. An improved selection of the elastic events and reduced background contributions yielded a small systematic reduction in the ratio mu_p G_E/G_M compared to the original analysis.

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arXiv2011

Search for a new gauge boson in the $A'$ Experiment (APEX)

We present a search at Jefferson Laboratory for new forces mediated by sub-GeV vector bosons with weak coupling $α'$ to electrons. Such a particle $A'$ can be produced in electron-nucleus fixed-target scattering and then decay to an $e^+e^-$ pair, producing a narrow resonance in the QED trident spectrum. Using APEX test run data, we searched in the mass range 175--250 MeV, found no evidence for an $A'\to e^+e^-$ reaction, and set an upper limit of $α'/α\simeq 10^{-6}$. Our findings demonstrate that fixed-target searches can explore a new, wide, and important range of masses and couplings for sub-GeV forces.

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arXiv2011

A precise extraction of the induced polarization in the 4He(e,e'p)3H reaction

We measured with unprecedented precision the induced polarization Py in 4He(e,e'p)3H at Q^2 = 0.8 (GeV/c)^2 and 1.3 (GeV/c)^2. The induced polarization is indicative of reaction-mechanism effects beyond the impulse approximation. Our results are in agreement with a relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation calculation but are over-estimated by a calculation with strong charge-exchange effects. Our data are used to constrain the strength of the spin independent charge-exchange term in the latter calculation.

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