Proton charge density

Abstract

The recent experiments on electron-proton scattering (1) carried out at Stanford have begun to give some insight into the structure of the charge distribution in a physical proton. This distribution of charge is, in the outer regions, probably produced by the cloud of virtual π mesons surrounding the proton. Near the core, however, heavier mesons will undoubtedly also contribute. Since a large number of phenomena involving π mesons can be described reasonably well in terms of the theory of Chew and Low(2), it is of interest to find the meson charge density predicted by this theory.