The Nucleon Anapole Moment and Parity-Violating ep Scattering

Abstract

Parity-violating (PV) interactions among quarks in the nucleon induce a PV $\gamma NN$ coupling, or anapole moment (AM). We compute electroweak gauge-independent contributions to the AM through $\mathcal{O}(1/\text{lamchis})$ in chiral perturbation theory. We estimate short-distance PV effects using resonance saturation. The AM contributions to PV electron-proton scattering slightly enhance the axial vector radiative corrections, R_A^p, over the scale implied by the Standard Model when weak quark-quark interactions are neglected. We estimate the theoretical uncertainty associated with the AM contributions to R_A^p to be large, and discuss the implications for the interpretation PV of ep scattering.

Comments: RevTex 29 pages + 8 PS figures, references and discussions added, to appear in Phys. Rev. D