No Arabic abstract
We report on a chiral effective field theory calculation of Compton scattering from the proton. Our calculation includes pions, nucleons, and the Delta(1232) as explicit degrees of freedom. It uses the delta expansion, and so implements the hierarchy of scales m_pi < M_Delta-M_N < Lambda_chi. In this expansion the power counting in the vicinity of the Delta peak changes, and resummation of the loop graphs associated with the Delta width is indicated. We have computed the nucleon Compton amplitude in the delta expansion up to N3LO for photon energies of the order of m_pi. This is the first order at which the proton Compton scattering amplitudes receive contributions from contact operators which encode contributions to the spin-independent polarisabilities from states with energies of the order of Lambda_chi. We fit the coefficients of these two operators to the experimental proton Compton data that has been taken in the relevant photon-energy domain, and are in a position to extract new results for the proton polarisabilities alpha and beta.
We report observables for elastic Compton scattering from $^3$He in Chiral Effective Field Theory with an explicit $Delta(1232)$ degree of freedom ($chi$EFT) for energies between 50 and 120 MeV. The $gamma,{}^3$He amplitude is complete at N3LO, $mathcal{O}(e^2delta^3)$, and in general converges well order by order. It includes the dominant pion-loop and two-body currents, as well as the Delta excitation in the single-nucleon amplitude. Since the cross section is two to three times that for deuterium and the spin of polarised $^3$He is predominantly carried by its constituent neutron, elastic Compton scattering promises information on both the scalar and spin polarisabilities of the neutron. We study in detail the sensitivities of 4 observables to the neutron polarisabilities: the cross section, the beam asymmetry and two double asymmetries resulting from circularly polarised photons and a longitudinally or transversely polarised target. Including the Delta enhances those asymmetries from which neutron spin polarisabilities could be extracted. We also correct previous, erroneous results at N2LO, i.e.~without an explicit Delta, and compare to the same observables on proton, neutron and deuterium targets. An interactive Mathematica notebook of our results is available from
[email protected].
We calculate the $N^*$ contributions to the generalized polarizabilities of the proton in virtual Compton scattering. The following nucleon excitations are included: $N^*(1535)$, $N^*(1650)$, $N^*(1520)$, $N^*(1700)$, $Delta(1232)$, $Delta^*(1620)$ and $Delta^*(1700)$. The relationship between nucleon structure parameters, $N^*$ properties and the generalized polarizabilities of the proton is illustrated.
Compton scattering off the proton in the third resonance region is analyzed for the first time, owing to the full combined analysis of pion- and photo-induced reactions in a coupled-channel effective Lagrangian model with K-matrix approximation. Two isospin $I=3/2$ resonances $D_{33}(1700)$ and $F_{35}(1930)$ are found to be essential in the range of 1.6 - 1.8 GeV. The recent beam asymmetry data of Compton scattering from the GRAAL facility are used to determine the helicity couplings of these resonances, and strong constraints are coming also from $pi N$ and $KSigma$ photoproduction data. The possible spin and parity of new narrow resonances is discussed.
Real and virtual Compton scattering has been and will be an important tool to study the structure of hadronic systems. We summarize the status of real Compton scattering and give an outlook at the new theoretical and experimental developments in the field of virtual Compton scattering.
We analyze virtual Compton scattering off the nucleon at low energies in a covariant, model-independent formalism. We define a set of invariant functions which, once the irregular nucleon pole terms have been subtracted in a gauge-invariant fashion, is free of poles and kinematical zeros. The covariant treatment naturally allows one to implement the constraints due to Lorentz and gauge invariance, crossing symmetry, and the discrete symmetries. In particular, when applied to the $epto epgamma$ reaction, charge-conjugation symmetry in combination with nucleon crossing generates four relations among the ten originally proposed generalized polarizabilities of the nucleon.