Nuclear Charge Density Distributions from Elastic Electron Scattering Data

The model independent procedure of extracting charge density distributions from elastic electron scattering data is investigated. The charge density distributions are expanded on an orthonormal basis and the parameters of the expansions are fixed by the comparison with the experimental data. Two bases with different analytical properties (Fourier-Bessel and Hermite) are used. This allows us to disentangle the uncertainties coming from the choice of the expansion basis from those intrinsic to the extraction procedure. We design a set of tests to select the number of the expansion coefficients adequate for a proper description of the data. The procedure is applied to elastic data measured on $^{12}$C, $^{40}$Ca and $^{208}$Pb nuclei.