Light Front Nuclear Physics: Toy Models, Static Sources and Tilted Light Front Coordinates

The principles behind the detailed results of a light-front mean field theory of finite nuclei are elucidated by deriving the nucleon mode equation using a simple general argument, based on the idea that a static source in equal time coordinates corresponds to a moving source in light front coordinates. This idea also allows us to solve several simple toy model examples: scalar field in a box, 1+1 dimensional bag model, three-dimensional harmonic oscillator and the Hulth\'en potential. The latter provide simplified versions of momentum distributions and form factors of relevance to experiments. In particular, the relativistic correction to the mean square radius of a nucleus is shown to be very small. Solving these simple examples suggests another more general approach-- the use of tilted light front coordinates. The simple examples are made even simpler.Comment: 19 pages, references adde

Computational Model for Electron-Nucleon Scattering and Weak Charge of the Nucleon

We show how computational symbolic packages such as FeynArts and FormCalc can be adopted for the evaluation of one-loop hadronic electroweak radiative corrections for electron-nucleon scattering and applied to calculations of the nucleon weak charge. Several numerical results are listed, and found to be in good agreement with the current experimental data.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, results unchanged, minor corrections in the appendi

Light-Front Bethe-Salpeter Equation

A three-dimensional reduction of the two-particle Bethe-Salpeter equation is proposed. The proposed reduction is in the framework of light-front dynamics. It yields auxiliary quantities for the transition matrix and the bound state. The arising effective interaction can be perturbatively expanded according to the number of particles exchanged at a given light-front time. An example suggests that the convergence of the expansion is rapid. This result is particular for light-front dynamics. The covariant results of the Bethe-Salpeter equation can be recovered from the corresponding auxiliary three-dimensional ones. The technical procedure is developed for a two-boson case; the idea for an extension to fermions is given. The technical procedure appears quite practicable, possibly allowing one to go beyond the ladder approximation for the solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation. The relation between the three-dimensional light-front reduction of the field-theoretic Bethe-Salpeter equation and a corresponding quantum-mechanical description is discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figure

Light-Front Nuclear Physics: Mean Field Theory for Finite Nuclei

A light-front treatment for finite nuclei is developed from a relativistic effective Lagrangian (QHD1) involving nucleons, scalar mesons and vector mesons. We show that the necessary variational principle is a constrained one which fixes the expectation value of the total momentum operator $P^+$ to be the same as that for $P^-$. This is the same as minimizing the sum of the total momentum operators: $P^-+P^+$. We obtain a new light-front version of the equation that defines the single nucleon modes. The solutions of this equation are approximately a non-trivial phase factor times certain solutions of the usual equal-time Dirac equation. The ground state wave function is treated as a meson-nucleon Fock state, and the meson fields are treated as expectation values of field operators in that ground state. The resulting equations for these expectation values are shown to be closely related to the usual meson field equations. A new numerical technique to solve the self-consistent field equations is introduced and applied to $^{16}$O and $^{40}$Ca. The computed binding energies are essentially the same as for the usual equal-time theory. The nucleon plus momentum distribution (probability for a nucleon to have a given value of $p^+$) is obtained, and peaks for values of $p^+$ about seventy percent of the nucleon mass. The mesonic component of the ground state wave function is used to determine the scalar and vector meson momentum distribution functions, with a result that the vector mesons carry about thirty percent of the nuclear plus-momentum. The vector meson momentum distribution becomes more concentrated at $p^+=0$ as $A$ increases.Comment: 36 pages, 2 figure

Connection between the high energy-scale evolution of the P- and T-odd πNN\pi N N coupling constant and the strong πNN\pi N N interaction

The large energy-scale behaviour of the parity and time-reversal violating (PTV) pion-nucleon coupling constant is analyzed in a model combining renormalization-group techniques and the dressing of the PTV vertex with a pion loop. With the strong $\pi N N$ vertex as a mixture of the pseudovector and pseudoscalar couplings, we show that depending on the admixture parameter, two qualitatively distinct types of behaviour are obtained for the PTV coupling constant at high energy scales: an asymptotic freedom or a fixed-point. We find a critical value of the admixture parameter which delineates these two scenarios. Several examples of the high-energy scale behaviour of the PTV $\pi N N$ constant are considered, corresponding to realistic hadronic models of the strong pion-nucleon interaction.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Trouble in Asymptopia---the Hulthen Model on the Light Front

We use light-front dynamics to calculate the electromagnetic form-factor for the Hulthen model of the deuteron. For small momentum transfer Q^2 < 5 GeV^2 the relativistic effects are quite small. For Q^2 = 11 GeV^2 there is about a 13% discrepancy between the relativistic and non-relativistic approaches. For asymptotically large momentum transfer, however, the light-front form factor, log Q^2 /Q^4, markedly differs from the non-relativistic version, 1/Q^4. This behavior is also present for any wave function, such as those obtained from realistic potential models, which can be represented as a sum of Yukawa functions. Furthermore, the asymptotic behavior is in disagreement with the Drell-Yan-West relation. We investigate precisely how to determine the asymptotic behavior and confront the problem underlying troublesome form factors on the light front.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures Accepted by Phys. Rev

Two-body Pion Absorption on 3He^3He at Threshold

It is shown that a satisfactory explanation of the ratio of the rates of the reactions $^3He(\pi^-,nn)$ and $^3He(\pi^-,np)$ for stopped pions is obtained once the effect of the short range two-nucleon components of the axial charge operator for the nuclear system is taken into account. By employing realistic models for the nucleon-nucleon interaction in the construction of these components of the axial charge operator, the predicted ratios agree with the empirical value to within 10-20\%.Comment: 19, UHPHYDOR-94-

The Rarita-Schwinger Particles Under de Influence of Strong Magnetic Fields

In this work, we calculate the solutions of the Rarita-Schwinger equation with the inclusion of the eletromagnetic interaction. Our gauge and coupling prescription choices lead to Dirac-type solutions. One of the consequences of our results are the Landau level occupation of particles, quite different from the usual spin 1/2 particle system occupation numbers.Comment: 12 page

Effects of Short-Range Correlations in (e,e'p) reactions and nuclear overlap functions

A study of the effects of short-range correlations over the (e,e'p) reaction for low missing energy in closed shell nuclei is presented. We use correlated, quasi-hole overlap functions extracted from the asymptotic behavior of the one-body density matrix, containing central correlations of Jastrow type, up to first-order in a cluster expansion, and computed in the very high asymptotic region, up to 100 fm. The method to extract the overlap functions is checked in a simple shell model, where the exact results are known. We find that the single-particle wave functions of the valence shells are shifted to the right due to the short-range repulsion by the nuclear core. The corresponding spectroscopic factors are reduced only a few percent with respect to the shell model. However, the (e,e'p) response functions and cross sections are enhanced in the region of the maximum of the missing momentum distribution due to short-range correlations.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figure

The Off Shell ρ\rho-ω\omega Mixing in the QCD Sum Rules

The $q^2$ dependence of the $\rho-\omega$ mixing amplitude is analyzed with the use of the QCD sum rules and the dispersion relation. Going off shell the mixing decreases, changes sign at $q^2 \simeq 0.4 m_{\rho}^2 > 0$ and is negative in the space like region. Implications of this result to the isospin breaking part of the nuclear force are discussed.Comment: 26 pages + 11 figures (PostScript