Electromagnetic current operators for phenomenological relativistic models

Abstract: Background: Phenomenological Poincar\'e invariant quantum mechanical models can provide an efficient description of the dynamics of strongly interacting particles that is consistent with spectral and scattering observables. These models are representation dependent and in order to apply them to reactions with electromagnetic probes it is necessary to have a consistent electromagnetic current operator. Purpose: The purpose of this work is to use local gauge invariance to construct consistent strong current operators. Method: Current operators are constructed from a model Hamiltonian by replacing momentum operators in the Weyl representation by gauge covariant derivatives. Results: The construction provides a systematic method to construct explicit expressions for current operators that are consistent with relativistic models of strong interaction dynamics.