Two-photon exchange in elastic electron-pion scattering

Abstract

We calculate two-photon exchange amplitude for the elastic electron-pion scattering in the dispersion-relation inspired approach, including both elastic and inelastic contributions. The latter was modelled as a sum of \rho and b_1(1235) meson contributions. We find that at Q^2 < 2 GeV^2 the elastic contribution is dominant, similarly to electron-proton scattering case. At higher Q^2 the inelastic contribution is not negligible, but still smaller than the elastic one. We also explain observed rapid amplitude growth at backward angles.

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures. Minor text changes, Eq.(3) corrected, to appear in Phys.Rev.C