NEUTRAL CURRENTS IN ATOMIC AND NUCLEAR-PHYSICS

The spin structure function of the proton measured by the EMC collaboration suggests an axial isoscalar neutral current for the nucleon. I study its implications for neutral current phenomena in atomic and nuclear physics. This includes parity-violating observables for transitions between hyperfine multiplets in light muonic atoms, selected inelastic neutrino nuclear reactions and the polarization asymmetry in electron scattering for isoscalar transitions. The neutrino-induced process 7Li → 7Li*(0.478 MeV) is particularly favourable for neutrino reactor experiments. I find that the axial isoscalar coupling extracted from the EMC measurement increases the neutrino cross section by 60%. © 1990.