Electromagnetic Excitations of the Nucleon in a Relativistic Quark Model

Abstract

A variation of the relativistic quark model of Feynman, Ravndal, and Kislinger is considered that admits spatial wave functions normalizable in all components of the relative variables. With these wave functions, the matrix elements of the hadronic electromagnetic current between the nucleon and excited states are calculated for final states up to 1700 MeV in mass. Very good agreement between the predicted elastic nucleon electromagnetic form factors and experiment is obtained. Cross sections for the electroproduction of nucleon resonances through the third resonance are derived and compared with experiment. A discussion of the consistency and limitations of the model is presented.