Electron and neutrino scattering off the deuteron in a relativistic framework

TL;DR

This paper develops a relativistic model for electron and neutrino scattering off deuterons, enabling calculations of various cross sections and polarization observables at high momentum transfers, using a unitary Poincaré group representation.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic framework with a unitary Poincaré group representation and employs the Argonne V18 potential for deuteron modeling, extending applicability to high momentum transfer processes.

Findings

Model accurately reproduces deuteron binding energy and scattering data.

Applicable to processes with momentum transfer up to several GeV.

Neglects pion production and two-body current contributions.

Abstract

We build a relativistic model to perform calculations of exclusive, semi-exclusive and inclusive unpolarized cross sections and various polarization observables in electron and neutrino scattering experiments with deuteron targets. The strong interaction dynamics is defined by an explicit dynamical unitary representation of the Poincar\'e group, where representations of space translations and rotations in the interacting and non-interacting representations are the same. The Argonne V18 potential is used to construct a relativistic nucleon-nucleon interaction reproducing the experimental deuteron binding energy and nucleon-nucleon scattering observables. Our formalism does not include the pion production channel and neglects two-body contributions in the electromagnetic as well as in the weak nuclear current operator. We show that it is applicable to processes at kinematics, where the internal two-nucleon energy remains below the pion production threshold but the magnitude of the three-momentum transfer extends at least to several GeV.