Virtual Compton Scattering at Low Energy and the Generalized Polarizabilities of the Nucleon o

Abstract

Virtual Compton Scattering on the nucleon: ${\gamma }^{\ast }N\to \gamma N$ is a new and rapidly developing field at low and high energies. This lecture is about the low energy part, i.e. for energies in the $(\gamma p)$ center-of-mass mainly up to the $\Delta (1232)$ resonance region. I review the concept of Generalized Polarizabilities of the Nucleon, and the experiments dedicated to their measurement.

Comments: 16 pages, 8 figures. lecture given at the Erice School "Lepton Scattering and the Structure of Hadrons and Nuclei," Erice, 16 - 24 Sept. 2004; to appear in "Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics"