Polarized Bhabha scattering and a precision measurement of the electron neutral current couplings.

The cross section for Bhabha scattering (e + e − → e + e −) with polarized electrons at the center of mass energy of the Z 0 resonance has been measured with the SLD experiment at the SLAC Linear Collider (SLC) during the 1992 and 1993 runs. The first measurement of the left-right asymmetry in Bhabha scattering (A e + e − LR (|cosθ|)) is presented. From A e + e − LR (|cosθ|) the effective weak mixing angle is measured to be sin 2 θ eff W = 0.2245 ± 0.0049 ± 0.0010. The effective electron vector and axial vector couplings to the Z 0 are extracted from a combined analysis of the polarized Bhabha scattering data and and the left-right asymmetry (A LR) previously published by this collaboration. From the combined 1992 and 1993 data the effective electron couplings are measured to be v e = −0.0414 ± 0.0020 and a e = −0.4977 ± 0.0045.