Relativistic and nuclear structure effects in parity-violating quasielastic electron scattering.

Abstract

The parity-violating longitudinal asymmetry [ital scrA] is calculated for quasielastic electron scattering. We use a varietry of relativistic mean field models for the response of nuclear matter and [sup 12]C at a momentum transfer of [ital q]=550 MeV/[ital c]. Relativistic effects from a reduced nucleon mass, RPA correlations, and vacuum polarization can all change [ital scrA] by a relatively large amount. These large nuclear structure corrections could make it impossible to extract strange quark matrix elements or radiative corrections to weak axial currents.