https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-024-01339-x
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Compton scattering on 
with nuclear one- and two-body densities
1
Department of Physics, Institute for Nuclear Studies, The George Washington University, 20052, Washington, DC, USA
2
Department of Physics, Duke University, Box 90305, 27708, Durham, NC, USA
3
High Intensity Gamma-Ray Source, Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratories, Box 90308, 27708, Durham, NC, USA
4
Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, M13 9PL, Manchester, UK
5
IAS-4, IKP-3 and JCHP, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52428, Jülich, Germany
6
Department of Physics and Astronomy and Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, Ohio University, 45701, Athens, OH, USA
7
Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296, Göteborg, Sweden
Received:
3
February
2024
Accepted:
15
May
2024
Published online:
18
June
2024
We present the first ab initio calculation of elastic Compton scattering from 
He. It is carried out to 
[N
LO ] in the 
expansion of 
EFT. At this order and for this target, the only free parameters are the scalar-isoscalar electric and magnetic dipole polarisabilities of the nucleon. Adopting current values for these yields a parameter-free prediction. This compares favourably with the world data from HI
S, Illinois and Lund for photon energies 50 MeV ≲ ω ≲ 120 MeV within our theoretical uncertainties of 
. We predict a cross section up to 7 times that for deuterium. As in 
He, this emphasises and tests the key role of meson-exchange currents between 
pairs in Compton scattering on light nuclei. We assess the sensitivity of the cross section and beam asymmetry to the nucleon polarisabilities, providing clear guidance to future experiments seeking to further constrain them. The calculation becomes tractable by use of the Transition Density Method. The one- and two-body densities generated from 5 chiral potentials and the AV18
UIX potential are available using the python package provided at https://pypi.org/project/nucdens/.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
