The influence of Fermi motion on the comparison of the polarization transfer to a proton in elastic $\vec{e}p$ and quasi-elastic $\vec{e}A$ scattering

Abstract

A comparison between polarization-transfer to a bound proton in quasi-free kinematics by the A$(\vec{e},e^{\prime }\vec{p})$ knockout reaction and that in elastic scattering off a free proton can provide information on the characteristics of the bound proton. In the past the reported measurements have been compared to those of a free proton with zero initial momentum. We introduce, for the first time, expressions for the polarization-transfer components when the proton is initially in motion and compare them to the ${}^2$H data measured at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI). We show the ratios of the transverse ($P_x$) and longitudinal ($P_z$) components of the polarization transfer in ${}^2\text{H}(\vec{e},e^{\prime }\vec{p})\text{n}$, to those of elastic scattering off a "moving proton", assuming the proton's initial (Fermi) momentum equals the negative missing momentum in the measured reaction. We found that the correction due to the proton motion is up to 20\% at high missing momentum. However the effect on the double ratio $\frac{(P_x/P_z{)}^A}{(P_x/P_z{)}^{{}^1\text{H}}}$ is largely canceled out, as shown for both ${}^2$H and ${}^{12}$C data. This implies that the kinematics is not the primary cause for the deviations between quasi-elastic and elastic scattering reported previously.

References in corpus (4)

• Nucleon Electromagnetic Form Factors
• Polarization Transfer in the 4He(e,e'p)3H Reaction at Q^2 = 0.8 and 1.3 (GeV/c)^2
• Proton G_E/G_M from beam-target asymmetry
• Polarization observables for elastic electron scattering off a moving nucleon

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Polarization transfer to bound protons measured by quasi-elastic electron scattering on ${}^{12}$C
• Quasi-elastic polarization-transfer measurements on the deuteron in anti-parallel kinematics
• Measurement of polarization transfer in the quasi-elastic ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}(\vec{e},e^{\prime }\vec{p})$ process
• Polarization observables for elastic electron scattering off a moving nucleon