Pion Polarizabilities at CERN COMPASS

Abstract

The electric alpha and magnetic beta pion Compton polarizabilities characterize the pion's deformation in the electromagnetic field of the gamma during gamma-pi Compton scattering. The chi_PT effective Lagrangian, using data from radiative pion beta decay, predicts the pion electric and magnetic polarizabilities alpha = -beta = 2.7 +- 0.4. The polarizabilities deduced by Antipov et al. in their low statistics Primakoff experiment (~ 7000 events) were about three times larger than this prediction. For pion polarizability, gamma-pi scattering will be measured in CERN COMPASS via radiative pion Primakoff scattering (pion Bremsstrahlung) in the nuclear Coulomb field: pi + Z --> pi' + gamma + Z; equivalent to gamma + pi --> gamma + pi Compton scattering for laboratory gamma's of order 1 GeV incident on a target pi at rest. The pion polarizabilities are determined by their effect on the shape of the measured gamma-pi Compton scattering angular distribution. One can expect from COMPASS a total measurement uncertainty for alpha, of order 0.4. New high precision pion polarizability measurements via radiative pion scattering data from COMPASS will provide important new tests of the QCD chiral dynamics polarizability prediction.