PANDA Website

An important goal of the future PANDA Experiment at FAIR (Darmstadt, Germany) is the investigation of the proton structure. Electromagnetic form factors parameterize the electric and magnetic structure of protons. In the time-like region electromagnetic proton form factors can be accessed experimentally through the annihilation processes ppbar→l+l− (l = e, μ), assuming that the interaction takes place through the exchange of one virtual photon. In frame of the PANDARoot software, which encompasses detector simulation and event reconstruction, the statistical precision at which the proton form factors will be determined at PANDA is estimated for both signal processes ppbar→l+l− (l = e, μ). The signal identification and the suppression of the main background process (ppbar → π+π−) is studied. Different methods have been used to generate and analyse the processes of interest. The results show that time-like electromagnetic proton form factors can be measured at PANDA with high statistical accuracy over a large kinematical region.