New Features in the Electromagnetic Structure of the Neutron

Abstract: Here we present new results for the Born cross section and the effective form factor of the neutron at the center-of-mass energies ${\bf \sqrt{s}}$ between 2.0 and 3.08 GeV, using 18 data sets corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 647.9 pb${\bf ^{-1}}$ from e${\bf ^+}$e${\bf ^-}$ annihilation reactions collected at the BESIII experiment. The process $e^{+}e^{-}\to n\bar{n}$ is analyzed with three individual categories to improve the efficiency of $n\bar{n}$ reconstruction. The cross section of $e^{+}e^{-}\to n\bar{n}$ is measured at 18 c.m. energies where the best precision is 8.1\% at $\sqrt{s}=2.396$ GeV. The corresponding effective form factors are extracted under the assumption $|G_{E}|=|G_{M}|$. Our results improve the statistical precision on the neutron form factor by more than a factor of 60 over previous measurements from the FENICE and DM2 experiments and usher in a new era where neutron form factor data from annihilation in the time-like regime is on par with that from electron scattering experiments. In addition, an oscillatory behavior of the effective form factor observed for the proton is discussed for the neutron.