An Estimate of Charge Symmetry Breaking in Nuclear Deep Inelastic Scattering

Abstract

We estimate the magnitude of charge symmetry breaking effects in deep inelastic scattering from nuclei. The resulting contribution to systematic uncertainties in hadronic determinations of $sin^2θ_W$ are found to be less than the current experimental accuracy, but may be important in the analyses of more precise future experiments. We expect the largest nuclear charge symmetry breaking effects in the Paschos-Wolfenstein ratio $R^-$, where the resulting uncertainty in the determination of $sin^2 θ_W$ reaches $10^{-3}$.