Weak neutral current effects in elastic electron deuteron scattering

Abstract

We study the effect of weak neutral currents in elastic electron deuteron scattering on both unpolarized and polarized deuteron targets. Theoretical expressions have been derived for the polarized electron asymmetry, polarized target asymmetry and recoil deuteron vector polarization within the framework of impulse approximation. We show that these polarization parameters can give vital information on the space-time and isospin structure of the hadronic weak neutral current. In particular, our numerical estimates show that a measurement of polarized target asymmetry is sensitive to the isoscalar axial vector piece in the hadronic neutral current which, though zero in the Weinberg-Salam model, is not completely ruled out by the data.