Charge Distributions of Moving Nucleons

Abstract

Relativistic charge distributions of targets with arbitrary average momentum are introduced. They provide an interpolation between the usual Breit frame and infinite-momentum frame distributions. We find that Breit frame distributions can be interpreted from a phase-space perspective as internal charge quasi-densities in the rest frame of a localized target, without any relativistic correction. We show also that the apparent discrepancies between Breit frame and infinite-momentum frame distributions simply result from kinematical artifacts associated with spin.