On the six-quark structure in the deuteron form factor

The charge and quadrupole deuteron form factors are investigated in a wide region of momentum transfer taking into account the deuteron six quark structure. It is shown that the contribution due to the antisymmetrization of the wave function with respect to quark variables is small and the contribution of the “true” six quark admixtures plays the leading role in the region of large momentum transfer.     

Measurement of the tensor structure function b1 of the deuteron

The Hermes experiment has investigated the tensor spin structure of the deuteron using the 27.6 GeV/c positron beam of DESY HERA. The use of a tensor-polarized deuteron gas target with only a negligible residual vector polarization enabled the first measurement of the tensor asymmetry A(d)zz and the tensor structure function b(d)1 for average values of the Bjorken variable 0.01< <0.45 and of the negative of the squared four-momentum transfer 0.5 GeV2 < <5 GeV2. The quantities A(d)zz and b(d)1 are found to be nonzero. The rise of b(d)1 for decreasing values of x can be interpreted to originate from the same mechanism that leads to nuclear shadowing in unpolarized scattering.     

Neutron structure function and deuteron EMC effect

Using the impulse approximation, a relativistic formalism for the deuteron structure function is given in the conventional nuclear model. The nucleon density distribution function is obtained by combining the Blankenbecler-Cook vertex factor with the Buck-Gross deuteron wave function. A new procedure is developed to extract the neutron structure function from empirical data on proton and deuteron targets. The results are used to evaluate the deuteron EMC effects in the conventional nuclear model.     

Polarized deuteron structure functions at small x

We investigate shadowing corrections to the polarized deuteron structure functions g ₁ ^d and b₁. In the kinematic domain of current fixed target experiments we observe that shadowing effects in g ₁ ^d are approximately twice as large as for the unpolarized structure function F ₂ ^d . Furthermore, we find that b₁ is surprisingly large at x < 0.1 and receives dominant contributions from coherent double scattering.     

Sensitivity of the pQCD deuteron structure to the nucleon form factors

We discuss the applicability of pQCD to the elastic scattering of electrons on protons and deuterons. We analyze the Q²-dependence of the reduced deuteron form factor, taking into account the recent data on the electric proton form factor and we find that the value of the QCD-scale parameter Λ differs essentially from the value Λ = 0.1 GeV, previously found using the dipole parametrization of the electromagnetic nucleon form factors G_E and G_M. Moreover, the predicted scaling behavior of the reduced deuteron form factor cannot be recovered in the Dirac and Pauli representations for the nucleon electromagnetic form factors. Received: 14 October 2002 / Accepted: 12 November 2002 / Published online: 11 March 2003 RID="a" ID="a"Permanent address: National Science Center KFTI, 310108 Kharkov, Ukraine. RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: etomasi@cea.fr Communicated by V.V. Anisovich     

Corrections to deuterium hyperfine structure due to deuteron excitations

We consider the corrections to the deuterium hyperfine structure originating from the two-photon exchange between an electron and deuteron, with deuteron excitations in the intermediate states. In particular, the motion of the two intermediate nucleons as a whole is taken into account. The problem is solved in the zero-range approximation. The result is in good agreement with the experimental value of deuterium hyperfine splitting.     

Probing the origin of the EMC effect via tagged structure functions of the deuteron

We demonstrate that measurement of tagged structure functions of the deuteron in (e, e′N) semi-inclusive reactions can discriminate between different hypotheses on the origin of the nuclear EMC effect. By choosing extreme backward kinematics for the spectator nucleon to minimize effects from the deuteron wave function and final state interactions, one can isolate the modifications in the structure of the bound nucleon within the impulse approximation. The same reaction can be used to extract the large-x neutron to proton structure function ratio.     

A comparison of high statistics measurements of the proton and deuteron structure functions

We present a detailed comparison of high statistics measurements of the structure functionF ₂(x, Q ²) from deep inelastic scattering of charged leptons on hydrogen and deuterium targets. It is found that the CERN results from the EMC and BCDMS Collaborations are both compatible with the lowQ ² electron scattering results from SLAC after an adjustment of the relative normalizations. We discuss the residual discrepancy between EMC and BCDMS which persists after this renormalization and find that the SLAC data are in better agreement with the steeperx dependence of the BCDMS results. A phenomenological parametrization ofF ₂(x, Q ²) is given.     

The pomeron colour structure and hadron scattering on the six-quark deuteron configuration

The pomeron colour structure provides some contribution to the elastic hadron-deuteron amplitude not contained in the Glauber like approach. This contribution is very sensitive to the short distance behaviour of the deuteron wave function and poses one to fix with a high precision a size of the deuteron six-quark bag.     

Isoscalar electromagnetic form factors and the structure of the deuteron at high momentum transfer

We derive general expressions for isoscalar electromagnetic form factors of nuclei including meson-exchange processes such as π, ?, ω and ?πγ exchange. Meson-nucleon vertices for nonzero momentum transfer as well as the effect of the finite width of the ?-meson are taken care of. Specifically, the electromagnetic form factors of the deuteron are calculated up to a momentum transfer of q² ≈ 200 fm^?2. A detailed numerical discussion of the various effects on meson-exchange processes is given. The effect of different deuteron wave functions and two types of photon-nucleon form factors are also discussed.     

Contribution of meson-exchange currents to the electromagnetic structure of the deuteron at high momentum transfers

The leading term of the asymptotic expansion of the contributions of the πNN and ρπγ processes to the electromagnetic form factors of the deuteron at high momentum transfers is calculated. The resulting asymptotic behavior is compared with experimental data obtained at the Thomas Jefferson Laboratory. Constraints on the functional dependence of meson-nucleon vertex functions that ensure a correct asymptotic behavior of deuteron form factors are discussed.