Gauging of equations method. II. Electromagnetic currents of three identical particles

The gauging of equations method, introduced in the preceding paper, is applied to the four-dimensional integral equations describing the strong interactions of three identical relativistic particles. In this way we obtain gauge-invariant expressions for all possible electromagnetic transition currents of the identical three particle system. In the three-nucleon system with no isospin violation. for example, our expressions describe the electromagnetic form factors of H-3, pd --> pd gamma, gamma(3)He --> pd, gamma(3)He --> ppn, etc. A feature of our approach is that gauge invariance is achieved through the coupling of the photon to all possible places in the (nonperturbative) strong interaction model. Moreover, once the proper identical particle;symmetry is incorporated into the integral equations describing the strong interactions, the gauging procedure automatically provides electromagnetic transition currents with the proper;symmetry. In this way the gauging of equations method results in a unified description of strong and electromagnetic interaction of strongly interacting systems. [S0556-2813(99)04709-3].