New experimental upper limit of the electron–proton spin-flip cross-section

In a previous publication, measurements of the depolarization of a stored proton beam by interaction with a co-propagating unpolarized electron beam at low relative energy have been presented and an upper limit of about 3 ×107 b for the electron–proton spin-flip cross-section was determined. A refined analysis presented in this paper reduces the previous upper limit by a factor of three by the introduction of a new procedure that also makes use of non-identified particles.