Aspects of Nucleon Compton Scattering

Abstract

We consider the spin-averaged nucleon forward Compton scattering amplitude in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory including all terms to order $\mathcal{O}(q^4)$. The chiral prediction for the spin-averaged forward Compton scattering amplitude is in good agreement with the data for photon energies $\omega \le 110$ MeV. We also evaluate the nucleon electric and magnetic Compton polarizabilities to this order and discuss the uncertainties of the various counter terms entering the chiral expansion of these quantities.

Comments: 17 pp, TeX, 7 figures available from the authors, preprint CRN-93/55