Low-energy analysis of the nucleon electromagnetic form factors

We analyze the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon to fourth order in relativistic baryon chiral perturbation theory. We employ the recently proposed infrared regularization scheme and show that the convergence of the chiral expansion is improved as compared to the heavy-fermion approach. We also discuss the inclusion of vector mesons and obtain an accurate description of ail four-nucleon form factors for momentum transfer squared up to Q(2) similar or equal to 0.4 GeV(2). (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.