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Title Determining the gluonic gravitational form factors of the proton
Authors Burcu Duran, Zein-Eddine Meziani, Sylvester Joosten, Mark Jones, Shivangi Prasad, Chao Peng, Whitney Armstrong, Hamza Atac, Eugene Chudakov, Hem Bhatt, Deepak Bhetuwal, Marie Boer, Alexandre Camsonne, Jian-Ping Chen, Mark Dalton, Nilesh Deokar, Markus Diefenthaler, James Dunne, Lamiaa El Fassi, Eric Fuchey, Haiyan Gao, David Gaskell, Jens-Ole Hansen, Florian Hauenstein, Douglas Higinbotham, S. Jia, Abishek Karki, Cynthia Keppel, Paul King, Ho San Ko, X. Li, R. Li, David Mack, Simona Malace, Michael McCaughan, Randall McClellan, Robert Michaels, David Meekins, Michael Paolone, Lubomir Pentchev, Eric Pooser, Andrew Puckett, Robert Radloff, Melanie Rehfuss, Paul Reimer, Seamus Riordan, Bradley Sawatzky, A. Smith, Nikolaos Sparveris, Holly Szumila-Vance, S. Wood, Junqi Xie, Z. Ye, Carlos Yero, Zhiwen Zhao
JLAB number JLAB-PHY-23-3742
LANL number arXiv:2207.05212
Other number DOE/OR/23177-6102
Document Type(s) (Journal Article) 
Associated with EIC: No
Supported by Jefferson Lab LDRD Funding: No
Funding Source: Nuclear Physics (NP)
Other Funding:DE-AC02-06CH11357
DE-FG02-94ER40844
 

Journal
Compiled for Nature
Volume 615
Page(s) 813–816
Refereed
Publication Abstract: The proton is one of the main building blocks of all visible matter in the universe. Among its intrinsic properties are its electric charge, mass, and spin. These emerge from the complex dynamics of its fundamental constituents, quarks and gluons, described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Using electron scattering, its electric charge and spin, shared among the quark constituents, have been the topic of active investigation. An example is the novel precision measurement of the proton's electric charge radius. In contrast, little is known about the proton's inner mass density, dominated by the energy carried by the gluons, which are hard to access through electron scattering since gluons carry no electromagnetic charge. Here, we chose to probe this gluonic gravitational density using a small color dipole, the $J/\psi$ particle, through its threshold photoproduction. From our data, we determined, for the first time, the proton's gluonic gravitational form factors. We used a variety of models and determined, in all cases, a mass radius that is notably smaller than the electric charge radius. In some cases, the determined radius, although model dependent, is in excellent agreement with first-principle predictions from lattice QCD. This work paves the way for a deeper understanding of the salient role of gluons in providing gravitational mass to visible matter.
Experiment Numbers:
Group: Hall B
Document: pdf
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05730-4
Accepted Manuscript: 2207.05212.pdf
Supporting Documents:
Supporting Datasets: