# Comment on “Nucleon form factors and a nonpointlike diquark”

## Abstract

Authors of Phys. Rev. C 60, 062201 (1999) presented a calculation of the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon using a diquark ansatz in the relativistic three-quark Faddeev equations. In this Comment it is pointed out that the calculations of these form factors stem from a three-quark bound state current that contains overcounted contributions. The corrected expression for the three-quark bound state current is derived.

The proper way to include an external photon into a few-body system of strongly interacting particles described by integral equations has recently been discussed in detail . In particular, it has been shown how to avoid the overcounting problems that tend to plague four-dimensional approaches . The purpose of this Comment is to point out that just this type of overcounting is present in the work of Bloch et al.  who calculated the electromagnetic current of the nucleon (and hence form factors), using the diquark ansatz in a four-dimensional Faddeev integral equation description of a three-quark system. Moreover, it is shown that the correct expression for the electromagnetic current consists of just three of the five contributions calculated in Ref. .

We begin by following Ref.  which is devoted to the discussion of the electromagnetic current of three identical particles, and is therefore directly applicable to the present case of a three-quark system. There we used the gauging of equations method to show that the bound state electromagnetic current of three identical particles is given by

$$j^\mu =\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }$$
(1)   
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ ($`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$) is the wave function of the initial (final) three-body bound state, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ is the three-particle electromagnetic vertex function given by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu =\frac{1}{6}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^\mu D_{0i}^1+\frac{1}{2}v_i^\mu d_i^1\frac{1}{2}v_i\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^\mu \right).$$
(2)   
Here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^\mu `$ is the electromagnetic vertex function of the $`i`$’th particle, $`d_i`$ is the propagator of particle $`i`$, $`v_i`$ is the two-body potential between particles $`j`$ and $`k`$ ( $`ijk`$ is a cyclic permutation of 123), $`v_i^\mu `$ is the five-point function resulting from the gauging of $`v_i`$, and $`D_{0i}d_jd_k`$ is the free propagator of particles $`j`$ and $`k`$. Because the bound state wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is fully antisymmetric, we can write

$$j^\mu =\frac{1}{2}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu D_{03}^1+\frac{1}{2}v_3^\mu d_3^1\frac{1}{2}v_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu \right)\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(3)   
The second term on the right hand side (RHS) of this expression defines the two-body interaction current contribution

$$j_{\text{two-body}}^\mu =\frac{1}{4}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}v_3^\mu d_3^1\mathrm{\Psi },$$
(4)   
while the first and third terms together make up the one-body current contribution to the bound state current. As discussed in Ref. , the first term on the RHS of Eq. (3) defines an electromagnetic current

$$j_{\text{overcount}}^\mu =\frac{1}{2}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu D_{03}^1\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(5)   
which overcounts the one-body current contributions, while the third term defines a current

$$j_{\text{subtract}}^\mu =\frac{1}{4}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}v_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }$$
(6)   
which plays the role of a subtraction term in that it removes the overcounted contributions. Here we shall not be concerned with the two-body interaction current, but rather, endeavour to examine the cancellations taking place between the first (“overcount”) and last (“subtract”) terms in detail. Thus we stress that the correct one-body contribution to the current, also known as the impulse approximation, is given by

$$j_{\text{impulse}}^\mu =j_{\text{overcount}}^\mu j_{\text{subtract}}^\mu .$$
(7)   
To reveal these cancellations one writes the bound state wave function in terms of its Faddeev components

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }_1+\mathrm{\Psi }_2+\mathrm{\Psi }_3$$
(8)   
where

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_i=\frac{1}{2}D_{0i}v_i\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(9)   
These components are related through the Faddeev equations

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_i=\frac{1}{2}D_{0i}t_i(\mathrm{\Psi }_j+\mathrm{\Psi }_k)$$
(10)   
where $`t_i`$ is the $`t`$ matrix for the $`j`$-$`k`$ system, and for identical fermions obey the symmetry relations 

$$P_{12}\mathrm{\Psi }_1=\mathrm{\Psi }_2,P_{13}\mathrm{\Psi }_1=\mathrm{\Psi }_3,P_{23}\mathrm{\Psi }_1=\mathrm{\Psi }_1,\text{etc.}$$
(11)   
where $`P_{ij}`$ is the operator interchanging particles $`i`$ and $`j`$. The term with overcounting is thus

$$j_{\text{overcount}}^\mu =\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_1+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_3\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu D_{03}^1\left(\mathrm{\Psi }_1+\mathrm{\Psi }_2+\mathrm{\Psi }_3\right)$$
(12)   
which after the use of Eqs. (11) becomes a sum of five terms

$`j_{\text{overcount}}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu D_{03}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\mu D_{01}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3`$ (13)   
$`+`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\mu D_{01}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^\mu D_{02}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu D_{03}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3.`$ (14)   
The diquark ansatz used in Ref.  is equivalent to invoking the separable approximation for the two-body $`t`$ matrix:

$$t_i=h_i\tau _i\overline{h}_i,$$
(15)   
with $`\tau _i`$ playing the role of the diquark propagator and $`h_i`$ describing the vertex between the diquark and two free quarks. In the case of separable interactions, it is usual to define the spectator-quasiparticle (quark-diquark) amplitude $`X_i`$ through the equation 

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_i=G_0h_i\tau _iX_i$$
(16)   
where $`G_0=d_1d_2d_3`$. In terms of these amplitudes the contribution of Eq. (14) becomes

$`j_{\text{overcount}}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{X}_3d_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu d_3\tau _3\left(\overline{h}_3d_1d_2h_3\right)\tau _3X_3+\overline{X}_3\tau _3\left(\overline{h}_3d_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\mu d_1d_2h_3\right)d_3\tau _3X_3`$ (17)   
$`+`$ $`\overline{X}_2\tau _2d_2\overline{h}_2d_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\mu d_1h_3d_3\tau _3X_3+\overline{X}_2\tau _2d_2\overline{h}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^\mu d_2d_1h_3d_3\tau _3X_3`$ (18)   
$`+`$ $`\overline{X}_2\tau _2d_2\overline{h}_2d_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu d_1h_3d_3\tau _3X_3.`$ (19)   
The five terms summed on the RHS of Eq. (19) are illustrated in Fig. 1. The last four terms are identical to the contributions $`2\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^i`$ ($`i=2,\mathrm{},5`$) of Ref. , while the first term on the RHS of Eq. (19) differs from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^1`$ only in that our diquark propagator contains a dressing bubble. With or without this bubble, Eq. (19) does not give the correct impulse approximation.

With the help of Eq. (9), the subtraction term of Eq. (6) can be expressed as

$`j_{\text{subtract}}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_3D_{03}^1\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_i`$ (20)   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_3D_{03}^1\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_3+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2D_{02}^1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_3.`$ (21)   
Comparison with Eq. (14) shows that the first and fourth terms of Eq. (14) are overcounted.Actually the fourth and fifth terms of Eq. (14) are identical, as can easily be shown using Eq. (23). Thus, although we have singled out the fourth term as the one being overcounted, it should be understood that overcounting is due to either the fourth or fifth terms. Thus the correct expression for the impulse approximation is

$$j_{\text{impulse}}^\mu =\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\mu D_{01}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\mu D_{01}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3+\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu D_{03}^1\mathrm{\Psi }_3.$$
(22)   
For the work of Ref. , this means that the correct impulse approximation is given by the sum of their $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^3`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^5`$ only, and not, as claimed in their work, by the sum of all five $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^i`$’s. Diagrammatically this means that the correct impulse approximation to the nucleon current in the diquark model corresponds to the sum of the second, third, and fifth diagrams of Fig. 1.

A further comment regarding Ref.  concerns the numerical values obtained for the contributions $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^5`$. By using the symmetry properties of Eqs. (11), one can rewrite the Faddeev equations, Eqs. (10), as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_i=D_{0i}t_i\mathrm{\Psi }_j$$
(23)   
where $`ij`$. For separable interactions this implies that the amplitudes $`X_i`$ satisfy the equations

$$X_i=\overline{h}_iD_{0i}h_j\tau _jX_j$$
(24)   
where $`ij`$. Using the time-reversed version of these equations one obtains $`\overline{X}_3=\overline{X}_2\tau _2\overline{h}_2d_1d_2h_3`$ which can be used to simplify the last term of Eq. (19):

$$\overline{X}_2\tau _2d_2\overline{h}_2d_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu d_1h_3d_3\tau _3X_3=\overline{X}_3d_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_3^\mu d_3\tau _3X_3.$$
(25)   
The RHS of this equation is just $`2\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^1`$ of Ref.  and we have therefore shown that

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^1=\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu ^5.$$
(26)   
This equality appears not to be reflected in the numerical results of Ref.  as is evident from their Table II.

Finally, we note that the errors of Ref.  have been perpetuated in a recent preprint .