Baryon form factors: Model-independent results

Abstract

Baryon form factors can be analyzed in a largely model-independent fashion in terms of two complementary approaches. These are chiral perturbation theory and dispersion relations. I review the status of dispersive calculations of the nucleon electromagnetic form factors in the light of new data. Then, I present the leading one-loop chiral perturbation theory analysis of the hyperon and the strange nucleon form factors. Open problems and challenges are also discussed.