arXiv subjects

Fred Myhrer

Publications and source records attributed to Fred Myhrer.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Elastic lepton-proton two-photon exchange scattering: An exact HB$\chi$PT analysis including hadronic effects at NNLO

We present an exact analytical evaluation of the two-photon exchange (TPE) correction to the elastic lepton-proton differential scattering cross section at low-energies within the framework of heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory. Our analysis focuses on the kinematic regime relevant to the ongoing MUSE experiment, and we therefore restrict the intermediate states to the dominant elastic channel. All loop integrals are evaluated analytically without approximations. Radiative and chiral recoil contributions of the proton are included, retaining kinematical and dynamical TPE corrections to the cross section through next-to-next-to-leading order [i.e., ${\mathcal O}(\alpha/M^2)$] accuracy in the recoil expansion where $M$ is the proton mass. At this chiral order, pion-loop contributions demonstrate that structure-dependent TPE effects arise through the proton form factors. Our analytical results for the scattering cross section reveal non-vanishing residual proton structure effects of ${\mathcal O}(\alpha/M^2)$, despite substantial cancellations between TPE box and crossed-box contributions. Such effects were entirely absent at this accuracy in our earlier analysis based on the soft-photon approximation. Although the next-to-leading-order contributions are numerically sizable, the next-to-next-to-leading-order TPE corrections are found to be small, thereby indicating that the chiral expansion exhibits reasonably good perturbative convergence.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Chiral enhancement in soft-photon bremsstrahlung and charge asymmetry in low-energy lepton-proton scattering

We carry out a Lorentz gauge evaluation of the single-soft photon bremsstrahlung radiative corrections to the unpolarized elastic lepton-proton scattering cross section at low energies using the framework of heavy baryon chiral effective field theory (HB$\chi$PT). We systematically incorporate all next-to-leading order [i.e., ${\mathcal O}(\alpha^3/M)$] contributions to the cross section arising from radiative and proton's low-energy recoil effects. An important component of the soft-photon bremsstrahlung corrections arises from the interference between lepton and proton bremsstrahlung processes, which are characterized as charge-odd. We identify a class of Feynman diagrams involving the final-state radiating proton that induces a chiral enhancement, thereby modifying the naive amplitude hierarchy based on the standard chiral power-counting scheme. The recently derived HB$\chi$PT result for the analytically computed exact two-photon exchange (TPE) counterpart at NLO is combined with our charge-odd soft-photon bremsstrahlung contribution to yield the complete charge-odd radiative correction. By incorporating the leading hadronic correction to the leading order Born one-photon exchange (OPE) process within the charge-even radiative correction, we obtain a prediction for the charge asymmetry observable, which can be compared with forthcoming MUSE data on elastic lepton-anti-lepton scattering off the proton. In all our calculations, we use finite lepton masses.

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arXiv2025

Lepton-proton two-photon exchange with improved soft-photon approximation including proton's structure effects in HB$\chi$PT

We present an improved evaluation of the two-photon exchange correction to the unpolarized lepton-proton elastic scattering process at very low-energies relevant to the MUSE experiment, where only the dominant intermediate elastic proton is considered. We employ the framework of heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory and invoke the soft-photon approximation in order to reduce the intricate 4-point loop-integrals into simpler 3-point loop-integrals. In the present work, we adopt a more robust methodology compared to an earlier work along the same lines for analytically evaluating the loop-integrations, and incorporate important corrections at next-to-next-to-leading order. These include the proton's structure effects which renormalize the proton-photon interaction vertices and the proton's propagator. Finally, our results allow a model-independent estimation of the charge asymmetry for the scattering of unpolarized massive leptons and anti-leptons.

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arXiv2023

Analytical Evaluation of Elastic Lepton-Proton Two-Photon Exchange in Chiral Perturbation Theory

We present an exact evaluation of the two-photon exchange contribution to the elastic lepton-proton scattering process at low-energies using heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. The evaluation is performed including next-to-leading order accuracy. This exact analytical evaluation contains all soft and hard two-photon exchanges and we identify the contributions missing in a soft-photon approximation approach. We evaluate the infrared divergent four-point box diagrams analytically using dimensional regularization. We also emphasize the differences between muon-proton and electron-proton scatterings relevant to the MUSE kinematics due to lepton mass differences.

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arXiv2023

Radiative Corrections: From Medium to High Energy Experiments

Radiative corrections are crucial for modern high-precision physics experiments, and are an area of active research in the experimental and theoretical community. Here we provide an overview of the state of the field of radiative corrections with a focus on several topics: lepton-proton scattering, QED corrections in deep-inelastic scattering, and in radiative light-hadron decays. Particular emphasis is placed on the two-photon exchange, believed to be responsible for the proton form-factor discrepancy, and associated Monte-Carlo codes. We encourage the community to continue developing theoretical techniques to treat radiative corrections, and perform experimental tests of these corrections.

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arXiv2021

Radiative and chiral corrections to elastic lepton-proton scattering in chiral perturbation theory

A unified treatment of both chiral and radiative corrections to the low-energy elastic lepton-proton scattering processes is presented in Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbations Theory. The proton hadronic chiral corrections include the next-to-next-to leading order corrections whereas the radiative corrections include the next-to-leading order terms in our novel power counting scheme. We find that the net fractional well-defined chiral corrections with respect to the leading order Born cross section can be as large as $10\%$ ($20\%$) for electron (muon) scattering process for MUon proton Scattering Experiment (MUSE) kinematics. We show {\it via} our model-independent treatment of the low-energy lepton-proton kinematics, that the largest theoretical uncertainty is due to the recent different published values of the proton's rms radius while, e.g., the next higher order hadronic chiral terms are expected to give rather nominal errors. For the radiative corrections we demonstrate a systematic order by order cancellation of all infrared singularities and present our finite ultraviolet regularization results. We find that the radiative corrections for muon-proton scattering is of the order of $2\%$, whereas for electron scattering the radiative corrections could be as large as $25\%$. We attribute such a contrasting result partially to the fact that in muon scattering the leading radiative order correction goes through zero in some intermediate low-momentum transfer region, leaving the sub-leading radiative chiral order effects to play a dominant role in this particular kinematic region. For the low-energy MUSE experiment, the often neglected lepton mass as well as the Pauli form factor contributions of the relativistic leptons are incorporated in all our computations.

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arXiv2021

CFNS Ad-Hoc meeting on Radiative Corrections Whitepaper

Current precision scattering experiments and even more so many experiments planed for the Electron Ion Collider will be limited by systematics. From the theory side, a fundamental source of systematic uncertainty is the correct treatment of radiative effects. To gauge the current state of technique and knowledge, help the cross-pollination between different direction of nuclear physics, and to give input to the yellow report process, the community met in an ad-hoc workshop hosted by the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science, Stony Brook University. This whitepaper is a collection of contributions to this workshop.

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arXiv2020

Lepton-Proton Two-Photon Exchange in Chiral Perturbation Theory

We use heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory to evaluate the two-photon exchange corrections to the low-energy elastic lepton-proton scattering at next-to-leading order accuracy, i.e., ${\mathcal O}(α, M^{-1})$, including a non-zero lepton mass. We consider the elastic proton intermediate state in the two-photon exchange together in the soft photon approximation. The infrared singular contributions are projected out using dimensional regularization. The resulting infrared singularity-free two-photon exchange contribution is in good numerical agreement with existing predictions based on standard diagrammatic soft photon approximation evaluations.

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arXiv2019

Neutrino pion-production on a nucleon

Heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory ($χ$PT), where the $Δ$ resonance is included, is used in order to examine the axial charged-current component of the weak interaction process at low neutrino energies. At leading chiral order the Adler theorems, derived using PCAC, are satisfied. At next-to-leading chiral order this effective field theory goes beyond these theorems. I will show that $χ$PT generates deviation from the PCAC predictions, which means that some neutrino-nucleon models that are used in evaluating neutrino nucleus scattering amplitudes, might need modifications.

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arXiv2018

Low-Energy Lepton-Proton Bremsstrahlung via Effective Field Theory

We present a systematic calculation of the cross section for the lepton-proton bremsstrahlung process l + p --> l' + p + gamma in chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. This process corresponds to an undetected background signal for the proposed MUSE experiment at PSI. MUSE is designed to measure elastic scattering of low-energy electrons and muons off a proton target in order to extract a precise value of the proton's r.m.s. radius. We show that the commonly used peaking approximation, which is used to evaluate the radiative tail for the elastic cross section, is not applicable for muon-proton scattering at the low-energy MUSE kinematics. Furthermore, we point out a certain pathology with the standard chiral power counting scheme associated with electron scattering, whereby the next-to-next-to-leading order contribution from the pion loop diagrams is kinematically enhanced and numerically of the same magnitude as the next-to-leading order corrections. We correct a misprint in a commonly cited review article.

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arXiv2013

Effective Field Theory calculations of $NN\to NNπ$

In this review we present the recent advances for calculations of the reactions $NN\to NNπ$ using chiral effective field theory. Discussed are the next-to-next-to leading order loop contributions with nucleon and Delta-isobar for near threshold s-wave pion production. Results of recent experimental pion-production data for energies close to the threshold are analyzed. Several particular applications are discussed: (i) it is shown how the measured charge symmetry violating pion-production reaction can be used to extract the strong-interaction contribution to the proton-neutron mass difference; (ii) the role of $NN\to NNπ$ for the extraction of the pion-nucleon scattering lengths from pionic atoms data is illuminated.

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arXiv2013

Radiative corrections to anti-neutrino proton scattering

The inverse $β$-decay reaction, $ \barν_e p \to e^+ n$, for low-energy anti-neutrinos coming from nuclear reactors is of great current interest in connection with high-precision measurements of the neutrino mixing angle $θ_{13}$. We have derived analytic expressions, up to next-to-leading order in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, for the radiative corrections (RCs) and the nucleon-recoil corrections both for this reaction and for the related neutron $β$-decay process. We show that the recoil corrections, which include the "weak magnetism" contribution, are small for neutron $β$-decay, but for inverse $β$-decay, the recoil corrections are comparable in size to the RCs for typical energies of reactor anti-neutrinos, and they have opposite signs. The RCs and the recoil corrections exhibit very different dependences on the neutrino energy.

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arXiv2007

The effect of Kaon Condensation on Quark-Antiquark Condensate in Dense Matter

Assuming that at sufficiently high densities the constituent quarks become relevant degrees of freedom, we study within the framework of a chiral quark model the influence of s-wave $K^-$ condensation on the quark-antiquark condensates. We find that, in linear density approximation, the presence of a $K^-$ condensate quenches the $\bar{u}u$ condensate, but that the $\bar{d}d$ condensate remains unaffected up to the chiral order under consideration. We discuss the implication of the suppressed $\bar{u}u$ condensate for flavor-dependent chiral symmetry restoration in dense matter

hep-ph↗

arXiv2004

Fixed-Point Analysis of the Low-Energy Constants in the Pion-Nucleon Chiral Lagrangian

In the framework of heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we investigate the fixed point structure of renormalization group equations (RGE) for the ratios of the renormalized low energy constants (LECs) that feature in the pion-nucleon chiral Lagrangian. The ratios of the LECs deduced from our RGE analysis are found to be in semi-quantitative agreement with those obtained from direct fit to the experimental data. The naturalness of this agreement is discussed using a simple dimensional analysis combined with Wilsonian RGEs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Analysis of ordinary and radiative muon capture in liquid hydrogen

A simultaneous analysis is made of the measured rates of ordinary muon capture (OMC) and radiative muon capture (RMC) in liquid hydrogen, using theoretical estimates for the relevant atomic capture rates that have been obtained in chiral perturbation theory with the use of the most recent values of the coupling constants. We reexamine the basic formulas for relating the atomic OMC and RMC rates to the liquid-hydrogen OMC and RMC rates, respectively. Although the analysis is significantly influenced by ambiguity in the molecular state population, we can demonstrate that, while the OMC data can be reproduced, the RMC data can be explained only with unrealistic values of the coupling constants; the degree of difficulty becomes even more severe when we try to explain the OMC and RMC data simultaneously.

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arXiv2001

BRST invariant $CP^{1}$ model through improved Dirac quantization

The Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin (BFT) scheme, which is an improved version of Dirac quantization, is applied to the $CP^1$ model, and the compact form of a nontrivial first-class Hamiltonian is directly obtained by introducing the BFT physical fields. We also derive a BRST-invariant gauge fixed Lagrangian through the standard path-integral procedure. Furthermore, performing collective coordinate quantization we obtain energy spectrum of rigid rotator in the $CP^1$ model. Exploiting the Hopf bundle, we also show that the $CP^1$ model is exactly equivalent to the O(3) nonlinear sigma model at the canonical level.

hep-th↗

arXiv2001

Capture rate and neutron helicity asymmetry for ordinary muon capture on hydrogen

Applying heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory to ordinary muon capture (OMC) on a proton, we calculate the capture rate and neutron helicity asymmetry up to next-to-next-to-leading order. For the singlet hyperfine state, we obtain the capture rate Gamma_0 = 695 sec^{-1} while, for the triplet hyperfine state, we obtain the capture rate Gamma_1 = 11.9 sec^{-1} and the neutron asymmetry alpha_1 = 0.93. If the existing formalism is used to relate these atomic capture rates to Gamma_{liq}, the OMC rate in liquid hydrogen, then Gamma_{liq} corresponding to our improved values of Gamma_0 and Gamma_1 is found to be significantly larger than the experimental value, primarily due to the updated larger value of g_A. We argue that this apparent difficulity may be correlated to the specious anomaly recently reported for mu^- + p to n + nu_mu + gamma, and we suggest a possibility to remove these two "problems" simply and simultaneously by reexamining the molecular physics input that underlies the conventional analysis of Gamma_{liq}.

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