The structure of the pion wave function in the relativistic constituent quark model is investigated in the explicitly covariant formulation of light-front dynamics. We calculate the two relativistic components of the pion wave function in a simple on
e-gluon exchange model and investigate various physical observables: decay constant, charge radius, electromagnetic and transition form factors. We discuss the influence of the full relativistic structure of the pion wave function for an overall good description of all these observables, including both low and high momentum scales.
We present a general framework to calculate the properties of relativistic compound systems from the knowledge of an elementary Hamiltonian. Our framework provides a well-controlled nonperturbative calculational scheme which can be systematically imp
roved. The state vector of a physical system is calculated in light-front dynamics. From the general properties of this form of dynamics, the state vector can be further decomposed in well-defined Fock components. In order to control the convergence of this expansion, we advocate the use of the covariant formulation of light-front dynamics. In this formulation, the state vector is projected on an arbitrary light-front plane $omega cd x=0$ defined by a light-like four-vector $omega$. This enables us to control any violation of rotational invariance due to the truncation of the Fock expansion. We then present a general nonperturbative renormalization scheme in order to avoid field-theoretical divergences which may remain uncancelled due to this truncation. This general framework has been applied to a large variety of models. As a starting point, we consider QED for the two-body Fock space truncation and calculate the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. We show that it coincides, in this approximation, with the well-known Schwinger term. Then we investigate the properties of a purely scalar system in the three-body approximation, where we highlight the role of antiparticle degrees of freedom. As a non-trivial example of our framework, we calculate the structure of a physical fermion in the Yukawa model, for the three-body Fock space truncation (but still without antifermion contributions). We finally show why our approach is also well-suited to describe effective field theories like chiral perturbation theory in the baryonic sector.
Within the covariant formulation of light-front dynamics, we calculate the state vector of a physical fermion in the Yukawa model. The state vector is decomposed in Fock sectors and we consider the first three ones: the single constituent fermion, th
e constituent fermion coupled to one scalar boson, and the constituent fermion coupled to two scalar bosons. This last three-body sector generates nontrivial and nonperturbative contributions to the state vector, which are calculated numerically. Field-theoretical divergences are regularized using Pauli-Villars fermion and boson fields. Physical observables can be unambiguously deduced using a systematic renormalization scheme we have developed previously. As a first application, we consider the anomalous magnetic moment of the physical fermion.
