Observability of the anapole moment and neutrino charge radius

The properties of the neutrino charge radius (NCR) and anapole moments (AM's) of elementary fermions, nucleons, and nuclei are discussed. The dependence of these off-shell electromagnetic couplings on the weak gauge parameter is explicitly demonstrated by a calculation performed in the $R_{\xi }$ gauge. The gauge dependence of the AM's and NCR implies that they cannot be observed in isolation from other second-order, electroweak effects. It is shown, however, that the AM's of various hadronic systems having an $\mathrm{SU}{\mathrm{}\left(2\right)\mathrm{}}_L$ quantum number $T_3^L=0\mathrm{}$ can be considered "observables" in certain formal, though unphysical, limits. It is argued that, apart from these special limits, the AM is a physically meaningful entity only for heavy and/or nearly degenerate nuclei.