Collinear photon exchange in the beam normal polarization asymmetry of elastic electron-proton scattering

The parity-conserving single-spin beam asymmetry of elastic electron-proton scattering is induced by an absorptive part of the two-photon exchange amplitude. We demonstrate that this asymmetry has logarithmic and double-logarithmic enhancement due to contributions of hard collinear quasi-real photons. An optical theorem is used to evaluate the asymmetry in terms of the total photoproduction cross section on the proton, predicting its magnitude at 20-30 parts per million for high electron beam energies and small scattering angles. At fixed 4-momentum transfers, the asymmetry is rising logarithmically with increasing electron beam energy, following the high-energy diffractive behavior of total photoproduction cross section on the proton. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.