The Role of 5-quark Components on the Nucleon Form Factors

Abstract

The covariant quark model is shown to allow a phenomenological description of the neutron electric form factor, G_E^n(Q^2), in the impulse approximation, provided that the wave function contains minor (~ 3 %) admixtures of the lowest sea-quark configurations. While that form factor is not very sensitive to whether the \bar q in the qqqq\bar q component is in the P-state or in the S-state, the calculated nucleon magnetic form factors are much closer to the empirical values in the case of the former configuration. In the case of the electric form factor of the proton, G_E^p(Q^2), a zero appears in the impulse approximation close to 9 GeV^2, when the \bar q is in the P-state. That configuration, which may be interpreted as a pion loop ("cloud") fluctuation, also leads to a clearly better description of the nucleon magnetic moments. When the amplitude of the sea-quark admixtures are set so as to describe the electric form factor of the neutron, the qqqq\bar q admixtures have the phenomenologically desirable feature, that the electric form factor of the proton falls at a more rapid rate with momentum transfer than the magnetic form factor.