Elastic electron–deuteron scattering in chiral effective field theory

Abstract

We calculate elastic electron-deuteron scattering in a chiral effective field theory approach for few-nucleon systems based on a modified Weinberg power counting. We construct the current operators and the deuteron wave function at next-to-leading (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading (NNLO) order simultaneously within a projection formalism. The leading order comprises the impulse approximation of photons coupling to point-like nucleons with an anomalous magnetic moment. At NLO, we include renormalizations of the single nucleon operators. To this order, no unknown parameters enter. At NNLO, one four-nucleon-photon operator appears. Its strength can be determined from the deuteron magnetic moment. We obtain not only a satisfactory description of the deuteron structure functions and form factors measured in electron-deuteron scattering but also find a good convergence for these observables.