We calculate photoexcitation amplitudes for several nucleon and delta resonances. We use a chiral quark model including two-body exchange currents. The two-body currents give important contributions. For the delta (1232) and the D13 (1520) we observe that the individual exchange current contributions considerably cancel each other while in the case of the Roper resonance and the S11 (1535) we get a reinforcement of the two-body amplitudes. In comparison with present experimental data, we obtain both for the S11 (1535) and for the Roper resonance an improvement with respect to the impulse approximation.
Longitudinal and transverse transition form factors for most of the four-star nucleon resonances have been obtained from high-quality cross section data and polarization observables measured at MAMI, ELSA, BATES, GRAAL and CEBAF. As an application, we further show how the transition form factors can be used to obtain empirical transverse charge densities. Contour plots of the thus derived densities are shown and compared for the Roper and S11 nucleon resonances.
A short overview of motivations and successes of two-body exchange currents between constituent quarks for electromagnetic hadron observables like charge radii, magnetic and quadrupole moments is given. We then predict and analyze exchange current effects on the radiative decay widths of decuplet hyperons, which are to be measured soon. In our chiral constituent quark model, exchange currents dominate the E2 transition amplitude, while they largely cancel for the M1 transition amplitude. Strangeness suppression of the radiative hyperon decays is weakened by exchange currents. The SU(F)_3 flavor symmetry breaking for the negatively charged hyperons is strong.
Octet hyperon charge radii are calculated in a chiral constituent quark model including electromagnetic exchange currents between quarks. In impulse approximation one observes a decrease of the hyperon charge radii with increasing strangeness. This effect is reduced by exchange currents. Due to exchange currents, the charge radius of the negatively charged hyperons are close to the proton charge radius.
Constituent quark models provide a reasonable description of the baryon mass spectra. However, even in the light- and strange-flavor sectors several intriguing shortcomings remain. Especially with regard to strong decays of baryon resonances no consistent picture has so far emerged, and the existing experimental data cannot be explained in a satisfactory manner. Recently first covariant calculations with modern constituent quark models have become available for all pi, eta, and K decay modes of the low-lying light and strange baryons. They generally produced a remarkable underestimation of the experimental data for partial decay widths. We summarize the main results and discuss their impact on the classification of baryon resonances into flavor multiplets. These findings are of particular relevance for future efforts in the experimental investigation of baryon resonances.
Chiral effective field theory (ChEFT) is a modern framework to analyze the properties of few-nucleon systems at low energies. It is based on the most general effective Lagrangian for pions and nucleons consistent with the chiral symmetry of QCD. For energies below the pion-production threshold it is possible to eliminate the pionic degrees of freedom and derive nuclear potentials and nuclear current operators solely in terms of the nucleonic degrees of freedom. This is very important because, despite a lot of experience gained in the past, the consistency between two-nucleon forces, many-nucleon forces and the corresponding current operators has not been achieved yet. In this presentation we consider the recently derived long-range two-pion exchange (TPE) contributions to the nuclear current operator which appear at next-to leading order of the chiral expansion. These operators do not contain any free parameters. We study their role in the deuteron photodisintegration reaction and compare our predictions with experimental data. The bound and scattering states are calculated using five different chiral N2LO nucleon-nucleon (NN) potentials which allows to estimate the theoretical uncertainty at a given order in the chiral expansion. For some observables the results are very close to the reference predictions based on the AV18 NN potential and the current operator (partly) consistent with this force.