Charge symmetry violation in the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon

Abstract

Experimental tests of QCD through its predictions for the strange-quark content of the proton have been drastically restricted by our lack of knowledge of the violation of charge symmetry (CSV). We find unexpectedly tiny CSV in the proton’s electromagnetic form factors by performing the first extraction of these quantities based on an analysis of lattice QCD data. The resulting values are an order of magnitude smaller than current bounds on proton strangeness from parity-violating electron-proton scattering experiments. This result paves the way for a new generation of experimental measurements of the proton’s strange form factors to challenge the predictions of QCD.