We investigate the sensitivity of the cross section for lepton pair production off a deuteron target, γd→l+l−d, to the deuteron charge radius. We show that for small momentum transfers the Bethe-Heitler process dominates, and that it is sensitive to the charge radius such that a cross section ratio measurement of about 0.1% relative accuracy could give a deuteron charge radius more accurate that the current electron scattering value and sufficiently accurate to distinguish between the electronic and muonic atomic values.
@article{arxiv.1804.03501,
title = {Dilepton photoproduction on a deuteron target},
author = {Carl E. Carlson and Vladyslav Pauk and Marc Vanderhaeghen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.03501},
year = {2019}
}