Quark disconnected diagrams in chiral perturbation theory - the scalar form factor

Abstract

Expressions for the Wick contractions contributing to the scalar pion form-factor were computed model-independently in chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. The results reveal correlations amongst the different contractions in terms of low-energy constants and allow for extrapolating lattice data for individual Wick contractions. The quark disconnected contribution to the real part of the form factor turns out to be suppressed with respect to the quark connected one. The corresponding contribution to the scalar radius has the same size as the connected contribution and can therefore not be neglected.