Comparison of Nucleon Form Factors from Lattice QCD Against the Light Front Cloudy Bag Model and Extrapolation to the Physical Mass Regime

Abstract

We explore the possibility of extrapolating state of the art lattice QCD calculations of nucleon form factors to the physical regime. We find that the lattice results can be reproduced using the Light Front Cloudy Bag Model by letting its parameters be analytic functions of the quark mass. We then use the model to extend the lattice calculations to large values of Q^{2} of interest to current and planned experiments. These functions are also used to define extrapolations to the physical value of the pion mass, thereby allowing us to study how the predicted zero in G_{E}(Q^{2})/G_{M}(Q^{2}) varies as a function of quark mass.