Dilepton photoproduction on a deuteron target

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of the cross section for lepton pair production off a deuteron target, $\gamma d \to l^+ l^- d$, to the deuteron charge radius. We show that for small momentum transfers the Bethe-Heitler process dominates, and that it is sensitive to the charge radius such that a cross section ratio measurement of about $0.1 \%$ relative accuracy could give a deuteron charge radius more accurate that the current electron scattering value and sufficiently accurate to distinguish between the electronic and muonic atomic values.