A measurement of the two-photon exchange effect in elastic electron-proton scattering with OLYMPUS

Abstract

Elastic electron-proton scattering has long been the tool of choice for the study of the proton form factors, GE(Q 2 ) and GM(Q2 ), which describe the electric and magnetic distributions of the proton as a function of momentum transfer. Recent experiments, measuring the form factors from polarization observables in polarized elastic electron-proton scattering, have found values of the ratio GE(Q2 )/GM(Q2) at high Q2 that contradict the results from unpolarized measurements. A proposed explanation for this discrepancy is the unaccounted two-photon exchange radiative correction, which could affect the unpolarized measurements. As this effect is currently not possible to calculate in a model-independent way, the OLYMPUS experiment was designed to make a direct measurement of it by measuring the elastic positron-proton to electron-proton scattering cross section ratio. The experiment was run in 2012 at DESY using the BLAST spectrometer and the DORIS positron and electron beams at 2 GeV incident on a gaseous hydrogen target. To analyze the data, a careful reconstruction of the scattering events, detailed simulation of the experimental setup, and full radiative corrections to the measured cross sections were performed. Preliminary results for the experiment show a statistically significant two-photon exchange effect, increasing over the measurement range of 0.6 GeV2 < Q2 < 2.35 GeV2 . These preliminary results suggest that two-photon exchange could explain the GE(Q2)/Gm(Q2 ) puzzle.