Parity violation in polarized electron scattering

Abstract

The weak forces are responsible for the decay of radioactive nuclei, and it was in these decay processes where parity non-conservation was first observed. Beta decay occurs through emission of e/sup +/ or e/sup -/ particles, indicating that the weak force can carry charge of both signs, and it was natural to speculate on the existence of a neutral component of the weak force. Even though weak neutral forces had not been observed it was conjectured that a neutral component of weak decay could exist, and Zel'dovich in 1957 suggested that parity violating effects may be observable in electron scattering and in atomic spectra. More than twenty years have passed since the early conjectures, and a great deal has been learned. Progress in quantum field theory led to the development of the SU(2) x U(1) gauge theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions and provided a renormalizable theory with a minimum of additional assumptions. Gauge theories predicted the existence of a new force, the neutral current interaction. This new interaction was first seen in 1973 in the Gargamelle bubble chamber at CERN. Today the neutral currents are accepted as well established, and it is the details of the neutral current structuremore » that occupy attention. In particular the role that electrons play cannot be tested readily in neutrino beams (recent neutrino-electron scattering experiments are, however, rapidly improving this situation) and therefore interest in electron-hadron neutral current effects has been high. Parity violation is a unique signature of weak currents, and measurements of its size are a particularly important and sensitive means for determining the neutral current structure.« less