Sensitivity of the deuteron form factor to nucleon resonances

The sensitivity of the deuteron form factor to contributions from the excited states of the nucleon is explored using a simple model of the nucleon-nucleon interaction which employs a tower of charged nucleon resonances. The model is manifestly covariant, analytically solvable, and gauge invariant. The consequences of this model are studied in the simplest possible framework. We assume that all particles have spin zero and that the tower has only three charged members, which consist of the proton, the Roper, and a higher state in the vicinity of the $D_{13}$. Nucleon-nucleon S-wave phase shifts and the deuteron form factor are calculated using this three member tower, and the results are compared to similar calculations using the proton ground state only. We conclude that the deuteron form factor is insensitive to the presence of excited states of the proton unless those states are of sufficiently low mass to produce strong inelasticities in $NN$ scattering channels.