Quark correlations and deuteron electromagnetic form factors

The recent preliminary values of A(Q(2)) and t(20)(70 degrees) elastic electron-scattering data extracted from deuterium at larger values of Q(2) have placed more stringent constraints on models of the nucleon-nucleon system. Comparisons of the data with conventional hadronic models and with perturbative QCD have been made, and are strongly in favor of the hadronic picture provided isoscalar meson exchange currents are included. In this work a nonperturbative quark model of the deuteron with parameters determined from earlier work is used to investigate the role of quark correlations in describing the deuteron electromagnetic form factors. The results give a good description of the recent data and show that this model with many-body confinement has quark correlation contributions to the charge form factors which are remarkably similar to the meson exchange current contributions.