Dirac's inspired point form and hadron form factors

Noticing that the point-form approach referred to in many recent works implies physics described on hyperplanes, an approach inspired from Dirac's one, which involves a hyperboloid surface, is presented. A few features pertinent to this new approach are emphasized. Consequences as for the calculation of form factors are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to be published in the proceedings of BARYON0

Comparison of Different Boost Transformations for the Calculation of Form Factors in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

The effect of different boost expressions, pertinent to the instant, front and point forms of relativistic quantum mechanics, is considered for the calculation of the ground-state form factor of a two-body system in simple scalar models. Results with a Galilean boost as well as an explicitly covariant calculation based on the Bethe-Salpeter approach are given for comparison. It is found that the present so-called point-form calculations of form factors strongly deviate from all the other ones. This suggests that the formalism which underlies them requires further elaboration. A proposition in this sense is made.Comment: Invited talk given at the 18th European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, Bled, Slovenia, 8-14 Sep 2002. Submitted to Few Body Syst.Supp

Relativistic quantum mechanics: A Dirac's point-form inspired approach

This paper describes a tentative relativistic quantum mechanics approach inspired by Dirac's point-form, which is based on the physics description on a hyperboloid surface. It is mainly characterized by a non-standard relation of the constituent momenta of some system to its total momentum. Contrary to instant- and front-form approaches, where it takes the form of a 3-dimensional delta function, the relation is given here by a Lorentz-scalar constraint. Thus, in the c.m. frame, the sum of the constituent momenta, which differs from zero off-energy shell, has no fixed direction, in accordance with the absence of preferred direction on a hyperboloid surface. To some extent, this gives rise to an extra degree of freedom entering the description of the system of interest. The development of a consistent formalism within this picture is described. Comparison with other approaches is made.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures, to be submitte

Form factors in RQM approaches: constraints from space-time translations

Different relativistic quantum mechanics approaches have recently been used to calculate properties of various systems, form factors in particular. It is known that predictions, which most often rely on a single-particle current approximation, can lead to predictions with a very large range. It was shown that accounting for constraints related to space-time translations could considerably reduce this range. It is shown here that predictions can be made identical for a large range of cases. These ones include the following approaches: instant form, front form, and "point-form" in arbitrary momentum configurations and a dispersion-relation approach which can be considered as the approach which the other ones should converge to. This important result supposes both an implementation of the above constraints and an appropriate single-particle-like current. The change of variables that allows one to establish the equivalence of the approaches is given. Some points are illustrated with numerical results for the ground state of a system consisting of scalar particles.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures; further comments in ps 16 and 19; further references; modified presentation of some formulas; corrected misprint

Form factors of heavy-light systems in point-form relativistic quantum mechanics: the Isgur-Wise function

We investigate electromagnetic and weak form factors of heavy-light mesons in the context of point-form relativistic quantum mechanics. To this aim we treat the physical processes from which such electroweak form factors are extracted by means of a coupled channel approach which accounts for the dynamics of the intermediate gauge bosons. It is shown that heavy-quark symmetry is respected by this formulation. A simple analytical expression is obtained for the Isgur-Wise function in the heavy-quark limit. Breaking of heavy-quark symmetry due to realistic values of the heavy-quark mass are studied numerically.Comment: Presented at the 21st European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, Salamanca, Spain, 30 August - 3 September 201

Point-form quantum field theory and meson form factors

We shortly review point-form quantum field theory, i.e. the canonical quantization of a relativistic field theory on a Lorentz-invariant surface of the form $x_\mu x^\mu = \tau^2$. As an example of how point-form quantum field theory may enter the framework of relativistic quantum mechanics we discuss the calculation of the electromagnetic form factor of a confined quark-antiquark pair (e.g. the pion).Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures. Based on a talk presented by W. Schweiger at the 20th European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, September 10-14 2007, Pisa, Ital

The Balian-Br\'ezin Method in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

The method suggested by Balian and Br\'ezin for treating angular momentum reduction in the Faddeev equations is shown to be applicable to the relativistic three-body problem.Comment: 14 pages in LaTe

RQM description of the charge form factor of the pion and its asymptotic behavior

The pion charge and scalar form factors, $F_1(Q^2)$ and $F_0(Q^2)$, are first calculated in different forms of relativistic quantum mechanics. This is done using the solution of a mass operator that contains both confinement and one-gluon-exchange interactions. Results of calculations, based on a one-body current, are compared to experiment for the first one. As it could be expected, those point-form, and instant and front-form ones in a parallel momentum configuration fail to reproduce experiment. The other results corresponding to a perpendicular momentum configuration (instant form in the Breit frame and front form with $q^+=0$) do much better. The comparison of charge and scalar form factors shows that the spin-1/2 nature of the constituents plays an important role. Taking into account that only the last set of results represents a reasonable basis for improving the description of the charge form factor, this one is then discussed with regard to the asymptotic QCD-power-law behavior $Q^{-2}$. The contribution of two-body currents in achieving the right power law is considered while the scalar form factor, $F_0(Q^2)$, is shown to have the right power-law behavior in any case. The low-$Q^2$ behavior of the charge form factor and the pion-decay constant are also discussed.}Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

Constraints of cluster separability and covariance on current operators

Realistic models of hadronic systems should be defined by a dynamical unitary representation of the Poincare group that is also consistent with cluster properties and a spectral condition. All three of these requirements constrain the structure of the interactions. These conditions can be satisfied in light-front quantum mechanics, maintaining the advantage of having a kinematic subgroup of boosts and translations tangent to a light front. The most straightforward construction of dynamical unitary representations of the Poincare group due to Bakamjian and Thomas fails to satisfy the cluster condition for more than two particles. Cluster properties can be restored, at significant computational expense, using a recursive method due to Sokolov. In this work we report on an investigation of the size of the corrections needed to restore cluster properties in Bakamjian-Thomas models with a light-front kinematic symmetry. Our results suggest that for models based on nucleon and meson degrees of freedom these corrections are too small to be experimentally observed.Comment: Contribution to Light Cone 2011, Dallas TX, 4 pages, 2 figure