Perturbative calculations of deuteron form factors

Abstract

We calculate the deuteron charge, electric quadrupole, and magnetic form factors up to next-to-next-to-leading order in chiral effective field theory, treating subleading corrections, especially that of chiral nuclear forces, in perturbation theory. We examine the power counting based on naive dimensional analysis by investigating the ultraviolet cutoff variation of these form factors. We find that the N${}^2$LO magnetic form factor shows significant cutoff dependence, suggesting the contact current operator responsible be enhanced. After promotion to N${}^2$LO, it indeed renormalizes the magnetic form factor. This is in agreement with a previous work based on renormalization-group analysis. For the charge and quadrupole moments, perturbative calculation allows us to study how they scale with multiple low-energy parameters such as the pion mass, deuteron binding momentum, and momentum transfer.