Electromagnetic structure of A=2 and 3 nuclei and the nuclear current operator

Different models for conserved two- and three-body electromagnetic currents are constructed from two- and three-nucleon interactions, using either meson-exchange mechanisms or minimal substitution in the momentum dependence of these interactions. The connection between these two different schemes is elucidated. A number of low-energy electronuclear observables, including (i) np radiative capture at thermal neutron energies and deuteron photodisintegration at low energies, (ii) nd and pd radiative capture reactions, and (iii) isoscalar and isovector magnetic form factors of ³H and ³He, are calculated to make a comparative study of these models for the current operator. The realistic Argonne v₁₈ two-nucleon and Urbana IX or Tucson-Melbourne three-nucleon interactions are taken as a case study. For $A=3$ processes, the bound and continuum wave functions, both below and above deuteron breakup threshold, are obtained with the correlated hyperspherical harmonics method. Three-body currents give small but significant contributions to some of the polarization observables in the ²H(p,γ)³He process and the ²H(n,γ)³H cross section at thermal neutron energies. It is shown that the use of a current that did not exactly satisfy current conservation with the two- and three-nucleon interactions in the Hamiltonian was responsible for some of the discrepancies reported in previous studies between the experimental and theoretical polarization observables in pd radiative capture.