Electron and photon scattering on three-nucleon bound states

A big spectrum of processes induced by real and virtual photons on the He-3 and H-3 nuclei is theoretically investigated through many examples based on nonrelativistic Faddeev calculations for bound and continuum states. The modem nucleon-nucleon potential AV18 together with the three-nucleon force UrbanaIX is used. The single nucleon current is augmented by explicit pi- and rho-like two-body currents which fulfill the current continuity equation together with the corresponding parts of the AV 18 potential. We also employ the Siegert theorem, which induces many-body contributions to the current operator. The interplay of these different dynamical ingredients in the various electromagnetic processes is studied and the theory is compared to the experimental data. Overall we find fair to good agreement but also cases of strong disagreement between theory and experiment, which calls for improved dynamics. In several cases we refer the reader to the work of other groups and compare their results with ours. In addition we list a number of predictions for observables in different processes which would challenge this dynamical scenario even more stringently and systematically. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.