Low-Energy Effective Field Theory of Lepton-Proton Bremsstrahlung

TL;DR

This paper calculates the lepton-proton bremsstrahlung cross section using effective field theory, revealing limitations of the peaking approximation at low energies relevant to the MUSE experiment, and corrects a review misprint.

Contribution

It provides a novel effective field theory calculation of bremsstrahlung cross sections and challenges the applicability of the peaking approximation for low-energy muon scattering.

Findings

Peaking approximation is invalid for low-energy muon-proton scattering.

Effective field theory accurately models bremsstrahlung in the MUSE kinematics.

Corrects a misprint in a widely cited review article.

Abstract

We calculate the cross section for the lepton-proton bremsstrahlung process $l+p\to l^\prime +p+\gamma$ in effective field theory. This process corresponds to an undetected background signal for the proposed MUSE experiment at PSI. MUSE is designed to measure elastic scattering of low-energy electrons and muons off a proton target in order to extract a precise value for the proton's r.m.s. radius. We show that the commonly used {\it peaking approximation}, which is used to evaluate the {\it radiative tail} for the elastic cross section, is not applicable for muon proton scattering at the low-energy MUSE kinematics. We also correct a misprint in a commonly cited review article.