Measurements of the proton elastic form factors for 1[le][ital Q][sup 2][le]3 (GeV/[ital c])[sup 2] at SLAC

We report measurements of the proton form factors [ital G][sub [ital E]][sup [ital p]] and [ital G][sub [ital M]][sup [ital p]] extracted from elastic scattering in the range 1[le][ital Q][sup 2][le]3 (GeV/[ital c])[sup 2] with total uncertainties [lt] 15% in [ital G][sub [ital E]][sup [ital p]] and [lt] 3% in [ital G][sub [ital M]][sup [ital p]]. Comparisons are made to theoretical models, including those based on perturbative QCD, vector-meson dominance, QCD sum rules, and diquark constituents in the proton. The results for [ital G][sub [ital E]][sup [ital p]] are somewhat larger than indicated by most theoretical parametrizations, and the ratios of the Pauli and Dirac form factors [ital Q][sup 2]([ital F][sub 2][sup [ital p]]/[ital F][sub 1][sup [ital p]]) are lower in value and demonstrate a weaker [ital Q][sup 2] dependence than those predictions. A global extraction of the elastic form factors from several experiments in the range 0.1 [lt] [ital Q][sup 2] [lt] 10 (GeV/[ital c])[sup 2] is also presented.