Speaker
Description
Proton and neutron electric and magnetic form factors are the primary characteristics of their spatial structure and have been studied extensively over the past half-century. At large values of the momentum transfer $Q^2$ they should reveal transition from nonperturbative to perturbative QCD dynamics and effects of quark orbital angular momenta and diquark correlations. Currently, these form factors are being measured at JLab at momentum transfer up to $Q^2=18$ GeV$^2$ for the proton and up to 14 GeV$^2$ for the neutron. We will report an updated calculation of these form factors using nonperturbative QCD on the lattice, including $G_E$ and $G_M$ nucleon form factors with momenta up to $Q^2=12$ GeV$^2$, pion masses down to the almost-physical $m_\pi$=170 MeV, several lattice spacings down to $a=0.073$ fm, and high $O(10^5)$ statistics. Specifically, we study the $G_E/G_M$ ratios, asymptotic behavior of the $F_2/F_1$ ratios, and flavor dependence of contributions to the form factors. We observe some qualitative agreement of our ab initio theory calculations with experiment. Comparison of our calculations and upcoming JLab experimental results will be an important test of nonperturbative QCD methods in the almost-perturbative regime.