Electron-deuteron scattering in a current-conserving description of relativistic bound states: formalism and impulse approximation calculations

The electromagnetic interactions of a relativistic two-body bound state are formulated in three dimensions using an equal-time (ET) formalism. This involves a systematic reduction of four-dimensional dynamics to a three-dimensional form by integrating out the time components of relative momenta. A conserved electromagnetic current is developed for the ET formalism. It is shown that consistent truncations of the electromagnetic current and the $NN$ interaction kernel may be made, order-by-order in the coupling constants, such that appropriate Ward-Takahashi identities are satisfied. A meson-exchange model of the $NN$ interaction is used to calculate deuteron vertex functions. Calculations of electromagnetic form factors for elastic scattering of electrons by deuterium are performed using an impulse-approximation current. Negative-energy components of the deuteron's vertex function and retardation effects in the meson-exchange interaction are found to have only minor effects on the deuteron form factors.