A calculation of semileptonic neutral currents assuming partons and Weinberg's renormalizable theory

Abstract

The Weinberg renormalizable theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions and its simple extension to hadron interactions are applied to a simple parton model. Strange partons are neglected. Inelastic neutrino and antineutrino cross sections for charged and neutral currents are expressed as functions of the parton charges, the Weinberg angle and the parton distributions in the Feynman variable x. Using the experimental charged current results, the neutral current to charged current total-cross section ratios are given as a function of the Weinberg angle for both integral and fractionally charged partons. Comparing these ratios with the experimental limits we conclude (a) that integral charges are excluded, and (b) that, given fractional charges, the Weinberg angle is constrained to be 40° ± 5°. It is shown that this result is not inconsistent with other published limits.