Reconstructed baryon transition current structure of the N(1520) electric quadrupole amplitude: Insights from Patterson function analysis

Understanding the spatial organization of transition currents associated with nucleon excitations remains an important challenge in hadron structure studies. While transition form factors provide indirect information about these currents, extracting spatial distributions often requires model-dependent assumptions. In this work, Patterson function analysis is applied to reconstruct the transition current density associated with the N(1520) electric quadrupole amplitude. The reconstructed distribution is predominantly non-negative and exhibits a sharply localized central peak reaching approximately 12300 fm⁻³. Comparison with previously reconstructed baryon transition currents shows that the N(1520) electric quadrupole amplitude has the smallest half-maximum radius, 0.0328 fm, indicating an exceptionally compact spatial concentration of transition-current strength. The reconstructed Patterson profile closely reproduces the central region of the original distribution, where most of the transition-current strength is concentrated, supporting the reliability of the reconstruction procedure. These results further demonstrate the versatility of Patterson function analysis as a model-independent technique for visualizing baryon transition structures directly in coordinate space and provide complementary empirical information alongside theoretical approaches based on parametrized form factors and lattice QCD calculations.