The complete experiment for $e^{\mp}N$ elastic scattering in presence of two-photon exchange

Abstract

We propose possible methods to measure the nucleon electromagnetic form factors in presence of two-photon exchange. Using a general parametrization of the spin structure of the matrix element for elastic $eN$-scattering, in terms of three independent complex amplitudes, we show that the measurements of the differential cross section for electron and positron nucleon elastic scattering, in the same kinematical conditions, allows to extract the nucleon electromagnetic form factors. The same is correct for the polarization method, with the measurement of the $P_{x,z}$ components of the final nucleon polarization (for the scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons and positrons). An alternative way, in absence of positron beam, is to measure a definite set of T-odd polarization observables, which includes three different experiments or only T-even observables, with five independent experiments. In both cases, the ratio $G_E(Q^2)/G_M(Q^2)$ is related to quantities of the order of $α$, which requires different polarization experiments of very high accuracy.