| We report the first measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry in elastic electron scattering from the proton. The experiment was performed at the MIT/Bates Linear Accelerator Center using a 200 MeV beam of longitudinally polarized electrons incident on a 40 cm long liquid hydrogen target. The scattered electrons are detected in a large acceptance (1.44 sr) air Cerenkov detector. The detector covers an angular range of ;We present a detailed account of the analysis performed on the first two high statistics data runs for the SAMPLE experiment. Our result for the asymmetry, representing 35 Coulombs of collected charge, is (... |
