Polarized Bhabha Scattering and a Precision Measurement of the Electron Neutral Current Couplings

Abstract

Bhabha scattering with polarized electrons at the $Z^0$ resonance has been measured with the SLD experiment at the SLAC Linear Collider. The first measurement of the left-right asymmetry in Bhabha scattering is presented, yielding the effective weak mixing angle of ${sin}^2{\theta }_W^{\mathrm{eff}}=0.2245\mathrm{}\pm 0.0049\pm 0.0010$. The effective electron couplings to the $Z^0$ are extracted from a combined analysis of polarized Bhabha scattering and the left-right asymmetry previously published: ${\upsilon }_e=-0.0414\mathrm{}\pm 0.0020$ and $a_e=-0.4977\mathrm{}\pm 0.0045$.