Non-standard physics and nucleon strangeness in low-energy PV electron scattering

Contributions from physics beyond the Standard Model, strange quarks in the nucleon, and nuclear structure effects to the left-right asymmetry measured in parity-violating (PV) electron scattering from¹²C and the proton are discussed. It is shown how lack of knowledge of the distribution of strange quarks in the nucleon, as well as theoretical uncertainties associated with higher-order dispersion amplitudes and nuclear isospin-mixing, enter the extraction of new limits on the electroweak parameters S and T from these PV observables. It is found that a series of elastic PV electron scattering measurements using⁴He could significantly constrain the s-quark electric form factor if other theoretical issues are resolved. Such constraints would reduce the associated form factor uncertainty in the carbon and proton asymmetries below a level needed to permit extraction of interesting low-energy constraints on S and T from these observables. For comparison, the much smaller scale of s-quark contributions to the weak charge measured in atomic PV is quantified. It is likely that only in the case of heavy muonic atoms could nucleon strangeness enter the weak charge at an observable level.