Soft Contribution to Form Factors of $\gamma^* p \to \Delta^+$ Transition

Abstract

The purely nonperturbative soft contribution to the $\gamma^* p \to \Delta^+$ transition form factors is estimated using the local quark-hadron duality approach. Our results show that the soft contribution is dominated by the magnetic transition: the ratio $G_E^*(Q^2)/G_M^*(Q^2)$ is small for all accessible $Q^2$, in contrast to pQCD expectations that $G_E^*(Q^2) \to -G_M^*(Q^2)$. We also found that the soft contribution to the magnetic form factor is large enough to explain the magnitude of existing experimental data.