Modern Studies of the Deuteron: from the Lab Frame to the Light Front

Understand

We review the recent progress made in studies of deuteron structure at small internucleon distances.

• This progress is largely facilitated by the new generation of experiments in deuteron electrodisintegration carried out at unprecedentedly high momentum transfer.
• The theoretical analysis of these data confirms the onset of the high energy eikonal regime in the scattering process which allows one to separate long range nuclear effects from the effects genuinely related to the short distance structure of the deuteron.
• Our conclusion is that for the first time the deuteron is probed at relative momenta beyond 300 MeV/c without dominating long range effects.