Nucleon resonance electrocouplings from the CLAS meson electroproduction data

Abstract

Transition helicity amplitudes {gamma}{sub {nu}}NN* (electrocouplings) were determined for prominent excited proton states with masses less than 1.8 GeV in independent analyses of major meson electroproduction channels: {pi}{sup +}n, {pi}{sup 0}p and {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}p. Consistent results on resonance electrocouplings obtained from analyses of these exclusive reactions with very different non-resonant contributions demonstrated reliable extraction of these fundamental quantities for states that have significant decays for either N{pi} or N{pi}{pi} channels. Preliminary results on electrocouplings of N* states with masses above 1.6 GeV have become available from the CLAS data on {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}p electroproduction off protons for the first time. Comparison with quark models and coupled channel approaches strongly suggest that N* structure is determined by contributions from an internal core of three constituent quarks and an external meson-baryon cloud at the distance scales covered in measurements with the CLAS detector.