Two-pion-exchange and other higher-order contributions to the $pp\to pp\pi^0$ reaction

Abstract

Much effort has been invested on effective-field-theoretical studies of the near-threshold NN \to NN\pi reactions and, in order to deal with the rather large three-momentum transfers involved, the momentum counting scheme was proposed as an alternative to the usual Weinberg counting scheme. To examine the practical utility of the momentum counting scheme, we study here the contributions of higher-order terms to the pp\to pp\pi^0 reaction. We discuss the consequences of the different treatments of the nucleon propagators in these two counting schemes. We also investigate certain higher chiral-order pion-rescattering terms and the five-point counter-term, which turn out to give important contributions.