Measurement of the Neutron Radius of 208Pb Through Parity-Violation in Electron Scattering

In contrast to the nuclear charge densities, which have been accurately measured with electron scattering, the knowledge of neutron densities still lack precision. Previous model-dependent hadron experiments suggest the difference between the neutron radius, Rn, of a heavy nucleus and the proton radius, Rp, to be in the order of several percent. To accurately obtain the difference, Rn-Rp, which is essentially a neutron skin, the Jefferson Lab Lead (208Pb) Radius Experiment (PREX) measured the parity-violating electroweak asymmetry in the elastic scattering of polarized electrons from 208Pb at an energy of 1.06 GeV and a scattering angle of 5° . Since Z0 boson couples mainly to neutrons, this asymmetry provides a clean measurement of Rn with respect to Rp. PREX was conducted at the Jefferson lab experimental Hall A, from March to June 2010. The experiment collected a final data sample of 2x 107 helicity-window quadruplets. The measured parity-violating electroweak asymmetry APV = 0.656 ± 0.060 (stat) ± 0.014 (syst) ppm corresponds to a difference between the radii of the neutron and proton distributions, Rn-Rp = 0.33+0.16-0.18 fm and provides the first electroweak observation of the neutron skin as expected in a heavy, neutron-rich nucleus. The value of the neutron radiusmore » of 208Pb has important implications for models of nuclear structure and their application in atomic physics and astrophysics such as atomic parity non-conservation (PNC) and neutron stars.« less