Complete analysis of pion-nucleon scattering in chiral perturbation theory to third order

Abstract

We consider pion-nucleon scattering in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory to third order. All electromagnetic corrections appearing to this order are included. We thus have a consistent description of strong and electromagnetic effects, which allows us to isolate the strong part of the interaction in an unambiguous way. We give pion-nucleon phase shifts up to pion laboratory momenta of 100 MeV and find sizeable differences for the S-waves of the elastic channels compared to previous phase shift analyses. The precise description of the scattering process also allows us to address the question of isospin violation in the strong interaction. For the usually employed triangle relation we find an isospin breaking effect of -0.7% in the S-wave, whereas the P-waves show an effect of -1.5% and -4 to -2.5%, respectively, for pion laboratory momenta between 25 and 100 MeV.