Probing Delta structure with pion electromagnetic production

Abstract

The Dubna-Mainz-Taipei dynamical model for pion electromagnetic production, which can describe well the existing data from threshold up to 1 GeV photon lab energy, is presented and used to analyze the recent precision data in the $\Delta$ region. We find that, within our model, the bare Delta is almost spherical while the physical Delta is oblate. The deformation is almost saturated by the pion cloud effects. We further find that up to Q^2 = 4.0 (GeV/c)^2, the extracted helicity amplitude A_{3/2} and A_{1/2} remain comparable with each other, implying that hadronic helicity is not conserved at this range of Q^2. The ratio E_{1+}/M_{1+} obtained show, starting from a small and negative value at the real photon point, a clear tendency to cross zero, and to become positive with increasing Q^2. This is a possible indication of a very slow approach toward the pQCD region. Finally, we find that the bare helicity amplitude A_{1/2} and S_{1/2}, but not A_{3/2}, starts exhibiting the scaling behavior at about Q^2 \ge 2.5 (GeV/c)^2.