The Charged Pion Form Factor (Run 2)

Experiment E01-004 at JLab, ran successfully July 9 - August 12, 2003



Overview

The pion is in some sense the "hydrogen atom" of light quark QCD, consisting of only two valence quarks. In contrast to the nucleon form factors, the pQCD calculation of Fpi is absolutely normalized by the pion decay constant, and the perturbative regime for Fpi is almost within reach of a 12 GeV facility. Predictions for the pion form factor at low momentum transfer range from QCD sum rules to constituent quark models to lattice QCD.

In the original Fpi experiment (E93-021), we found that at lower Q2 the pion is consistent with highly non-perturbative models of the pion structure (or with a simple extrapolation of a monopole form factor). Our new experiment measured the pion form factor at Q2=1.6 and 2.5 GeV2, representing the ultimate reach of JLab for this observable with the present equipment. Although our maximum beam energy was only 5.25 GeV, we pushed the limits of the HMS (pion arm) minimum angle and the SOS (electron arm) maximum momentum. Measurements at even higher Q2 will require a high momentum, small angle spectrometer like the proposed SHMS.

Physics Motivation


Collaboration

Data Analysis



Run 2 Essential Information


Useful References

  • Brauel paper
  • Other important papers to be added

Publications, Conferences and Workshops


Other information


This site is maintained by David Mack and Garth Huber
Last updated 2005-Aug-17