Large Q 2 electrodisintegration of the deuteron in the virtual nucleon approximation

The two-body breakup of the deuteron is studied at high-Q{sup 2} kinematics, with the main motivation to probe the deuteron at small internucleon distances. Such studies are associated with the probing of the high-momentum component of the deuteron wave function. For this, two main theoretical issues have been addressed: electromagnetic interaction of the virtual photon with the bound nucleon and the strong interaction of produced baryons in the final state of the breakup reaction. Within virtual nucleon approximation we developed a new prescription to account for the bound nucleon effects in electromagnetic interaction. The final-state interaction at high-Q{sup 2} kinematics is calculated within the generalized eikonal approximation (GEA). We studied the uncertainties involved in the calculation and performed comparisons with the first experimental data on deuteron electrodisintegration at large Q{sup 2}. We demonstrate that the experimental data confirm the GEA's early prediction that the rescattering is maximal at approx70 deg. of recoil nucleon production relative to the momentum of the virtual photon. Comparisons also show that the forward recoil nucleon angles are best suited for studies of the electromagnetic interaction of bound nucleons and the high-momentum structure of the deuteron. Backward recoil angle kinematics show sizable effects owing to themore » DELTA-isobar contribution. The latter indicates the importance of further development of the GEA to account for the inelastic transitions in the intermediate state of the electrodisintegration reactions.« less