Gauge-invariant tree-level photoproduction amplitudes with form factors

We show how the gauge-invariance formulation given by Haberzettl is implemented in practice for photoproduction amplitudes at tree level with form factors describing composite nucleons. We demonstrate that, in contrast to Ohta’s gauge-invariance prescription, this formalism allows electric current contributions to be multiplied by a form factor, i.e., it does not require that they be treated like bare currents. While different in detail, this nevertheless lends support to previous ad hoc approaches which multiply the Born amplitudes by an overall form factor. Numerical results for kaon photoproduction off the nucleon are given. They show that the gauge procedure by Haberzettl leads to much improved χ² values compared to Ohta’s prescription.