Elastic electron scattering from the deuteron with the spectator equation

A covariant description of elastic electron scattering from the deuteron is constructed with the spectator or Gross equation [1] which has been used with some success in models of the nucleon-nucleon interaction [2]. This equation can be related to the Bethe-Salpeter equation by placing one of the intermediate state particles on the positive energy mass shell. This constraint on the relative energy is manifestly covariant and has the same physical meaning in all reference frames. This simplifies the imposition of the constraint in diagrams representing current matrix elements. The diagrams for the elastic form factors of the deuteron are shown in Fig. 1. copyright 1995 American Institute of Physics