Isospin breaking in pion Compton scattering

Using chiral perturbation theory we calculate for pion Compton scattering the isospin-breaking effects induced by the difference between the charged and neutral pion mass. At one-loop order this correction is directly proportional to mp±2-mp02\ensuremath{m_{\pi^\pm}^2-m_{\pi^0}^2} and free of (electromagnetic) counterterm contributions. The differential cross-section for charged pion Compton scattering p-g? p-g\ensuremath{\pi^-\gamma \rightarrow \pi^-\gamma} gets affected (in backward directions) at the level of a few permille. At the same time the isospin-breaking correction leads to a small shift of the pion polarizabilities by d(ap- bp) @ 1.3 ·10-5\ensuremath{\delta(\alpha_\pi- \beta_\pi) \simeq 1.3 \cdot 10^{-5}} fm^3. In case of the low-energy gg? p0p0\ensuremath{\gamma\gamma \rightarrow \pi^0\pi^0} reaction isospin breaking manifests itself through a cusp effect at the p+p-\ensuremath{\pi^+\pi^-} threshold. We give an improved estimate for it based on the empirical p \pi p \pi -scattering length difference a0-a2\ensuremath{a_0-a_2} .