In-medium electromagnetic form factors of pseudoscalar mesons from the quark model

Abstract: We explore the modifications of hadron structure in a nuclear medium, focusing on the spacelike electromagnetic form factors (EMFFs) of light and heavy-light pseudoscalar mesons. By combining the light-front quark model (LFQM) with the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model, which reasonably reproduces EMFFs in free space and the saturation properties of nuclear matter, respectively, we systematically analyze the in-medium EMFFs and charge radii of mesons with various quark flavors. Our findings show that the EMFFs of charged (neutral) mesons exhibit a faster fall-off (increase) with increasing four-momentum transfer squared and nuclear density. Consequently, the absolute value of the charge radii of mesons increases with nuclear density, where the rate of increase depends on their quark flavor contents. We observe that the EMFFs of pions and kaons undergo significant modifications in the nuclear medium, while heavy-light mesons are only slightly modified. By decomposing the quark flavor contributions to EMFFs, we show that the medium effects primarily impact the light-quark sector, leaving the heavy-quark sector nearly unaffected. The results of this study further suggest the importance of the medium effects at the quark level.