Measurements of the generalized electric and magnetic polarizabilities of the proton at low Q2 using the virtual-compton-scattering reaction

Measured proton electromagnetic structure deviates from theoretical predictions

The visible world is founded on the proton, the only composite building block of matter that is stable in nature. Consequently, understanding the formation of matter relies on explaining the dynamics and the properties of the proton's bound state. A fundamental property of the proton involves the response of the system to an external electromagnetic field. It is characterized by the electromagnetic polarizabilities¹ that describe how easily the charge and magnetization distributions inside the system are distorted by the electromagnetic field. Moreover, the generalized polarizabilities² map out the resulting deformation of the densities in a proton subject to an electromagnetic field. They disclose essential information about the underlying system dynamics and provide a key for decoding the proton structure in terms of the theory of the strong interaction that binds its elementary quark and gluon constituents. Of particular interest is a puzzle in the electric generalized polarizability of the proton that remains unresolved for two decades². Here we report measurements of the proton's electromagnetic generalized polarizabilities at low four-momentum transfer squared. We show evidence of an anomaly to the behaviour of the proton's electric generalized polarizability that contradicts the predictions of nuclear theory and derive its signature in the spatial distribution of the induced polarization in the proton. The reported measurements suggest the presence of a new, not-yet-understood dynamical mechanism in the proton and present notable challenges to the nuclear theory.

New Insight in the Q^{2} Dependence of Proton Generalized Polarizabilities

Virtual Compton scattering on the proton has been investigated at three yet unexplored values of the four-momentum transfer Q^{2}: 0.10, 0.20, and 0.45  GeV^{2}, at the Mainz Microtron. Fits performed using either the low-energy theorem or dispersion relations allowed the extraction of the structure functions P_{LL}-P_{TT}/ε and P_{LT}, as well as the electric and magnetic generalized polarizabilities α_{E1}(Q^{2}) and β_{M1}(Q^{2}). These new results show a smooth and rapid falloff of α_{E1}(Q^{2}), in contrast to previous measurements at Q^{2}=0.33  GeV^{2}, and provide for the first time a precise mapping of β_{M1}(Q^{2}) in the low-Q^{2} region.

Light-front interpretation of proton generalized polarizabilities

We extend the recently developed formalism to extract light-front quark charge densities from nucleon form factor data to the deformations of these quark charge densities when applying an external electric field. We show that the resulting induced polarizations can be extracted from proton generalized polarizabilities. The available data for the generalized electric polarizability of the proton yield a pronounced structure in its induced polarization at large transverse distances, which will be pinned down by forthcoming high precision virtual Compton scattering experiments.