Parity violation in electron scattering from carbon: A progress report

An experiment is being performed at the MIT Bates Linear Accelerator Center to measure the parity‐violating asymmetry in the elastic scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons from Carbon. The asymmetry, which is due to the isoscalar component of the neutral weak current, is predicted to be about 0.6×10−6. We have recently obtained preliminary data with polarized electrons. The status of the experiment is discussed.