Study of the Electro-weak Structure of the Nucleon

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The research program funded by this award will provide experimental data on nucleon structure that can be probed via the weak and the electromagnetic interactions. These objectives are sought through two major projects which are scheduled to take data at Jefferson Lab during the award period: the QWEAK and DVCS/Hall A experiments. The QWEAK experiment is a precision measurement of the weak charge of the proton at very low energy scale. The weak charge of the proton at various energy scales is predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, and its precise value at low energy scale would be sensitive to various physics processes beyond the Standard Model. Thus QWEAK may provide a measure of the influence of new particles which would be complimenatry to the direct observation at the LHC. The DVCS/Hall A experiment will study of the correlation between the momentum and spatial distribution of the quarks within the proton. This correlation provides a novel way to study the proton that bridges between two well explored avenues of nucleon studies: form factor (spatial) distributions and parton distribution (momentum) functions. The research group supported by this award is responsible for the data acquisition and data analysis systems for QWEAK, and for a variety of hardware and software projects within the DVCS/Hall A experiment. These experiements provide outstanding opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students to get hands-on experience with hardware and software tools and contribute to research at a major national laboratory.