Darwin-Foldy term and proton charge radius

In this contribution we study the Dirac equation for a finite size proton in an external electric field with explicit introduction of Dirac-Pauli form factors. Our aim is twofold. On the one hand, we wish to study whether our conclusions regarding the exact cancellation between Dirac form factor and Foldy term contributions occurring for the neutron still hold for the proton. On the other hand, we wish to clearly illustrate some of the specific features of the description of a composite particle like the proton with the Dirac equation.Comment: contribution to XVIIth European Conference of Few-Body Problems in Physics, Evora, Portugal Sept 2000, to be published in Nucl. Phys.

Reworking the Tucson-Melbourne Three-Nucleon Potential

We introduce new values of the strength constants (i.e., $a$, $b$, $c$, and $d$ coefficients) of the Tucson-Melbourne (TM) 2$\pi$ exchange three nucleon potential. The new values come from contemporary dispersion relation analyses of meson factory $\pi$N scattering data. We make variational Monte Carlo calculations of the triton with the original and updated three-body forces to study the effects of this update. We remove a short-range -- $\pi$-range part of the potential due to the $c$ coefficient and discuss the effect on the triton binding energy.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in Few-Body System

Meson PVV Interactions are determined by Quark Loops

We show that all abnormal parity three-body meson interactions can be adequately described by quark loops, evaluated at zero external momentum, with couplings determined by $U(N_f)$ symmetry. We focus primarily on radiative meson decays which involve one pseudoscalar. The agreement with experiment for non-rare decays is surprisingly good and requires very few parameters, namely the coupling constants $g_{\pi qq}$ and $g_{\rho qq}$ and some mixing angles. This agreement extends to some three-body decays that are dominated by pion pairs in a P-wave state.Comment: 21 pages, Revtex, one figur

Momentum and Coordinate Space Three-nucleon Potentials

In this paper we give explicit formulae in momentum and coordinate space for the three-nucleon potentials due to $\rho$ and $\pi$ meson exchange, derived from off-mass-shell meson-nucleon scattering amplitudes which are constrained by the symmetries of QCD and by the experimental data. Those potentials have already been applied to nuclear matter calculations. Here we display additional terms which appear to be the most important for nuclear structure. The potentials are decomposed in a way that separates the contributions of different physical mechanisms involved in the meson-nucleon amplitudes. The same type of decomposition is presented for the $\pi - \pi$ TM force: the $\Delta$, the chiral symmetry breaking and the nucleon pair terms are isolated.Comment: LATEX, 33 pages, 3 figures (available as postscript files upon request