Measuring the weak charge of the proton at Jefferson Lab: A search for physics beyond the standard model

The JLab Q _weak Collaboration is designing and constructing an experiment to measure the proton’s weak charge, Q _W ^p , by measuring the parity violating asymmetry in elastic electron-proton scattering at very low momentum transfer. The standard model predicts Q _W ^p = 1 ? 4 sin² θ _w from the running of the weak mixing angle sin² θ _w , corresponding to a 10σ effect in the experiment. The experiment will determine Q _W ^p with 4% combined statistical and systematic uncertainties, which leads to 0.3% uncertainty in sin² θ _w . Installation of the experiment will begin in September 2009.