Current conservation and interaction currents in relativistic meson theories

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Abstract
The relation between the nucleon-nucleon interaction and exchange currents needed for current conservation are derived for the Bethe-Salpeter formalism, and for the approach in which the spectator particle is restricted to its mass shell. For both approaches, it is shown how to achieve current conservation for a completely general isospin dependent, energy dependent interaction with arbitrary phenomenological electromagnetic form factors for the nucleon and mesons, and with strong form factors at the meson-nucleon vertices. Contrary to what has often been stated in the literature, the development shows that current conservation places no restrictions on the use of different electromagnetic form factors for mesons and nucleons, and that phenomenological meson-nucleon form factors can be introduced in a way which is consistent with current conservation. The longitudinal part of the exchange current is uniquely determined by current conservation, and for the common case of an interaction that only depends on the invariant momentum transfer variable an explicit expression for this longitudinal exchange current is given. The transverse part, which contains all electromagnetic form factors, is unconstrained by current conservation.