Nucleon polarisabilities from Compton scattering off the one- and few-nucleon system

These proceedings sketch how combining recent theoretical advances with data from the new generation of high-precision Compton scattering experiments on both the proton and few-nucleon systems offers fresh, detailed insight into the Physics of the nucleon polarisabilities. A multipole-analysis is presented to simplify their interpretation. Predictions from Chiral Effective Field Theory with special emphasis on the spin-polarisabilities can serve as a guideline for doubly-polarised experiments below 300 MeV. The strong energy-dependence of the scalar magnetic dipole-polarisability βM1 turns out to be crucial to understanding the proton and deuteron data. Finally, a high-accuracy determination of the proton and neutron polarisabilities shows that they are identical within error-bars. For details and a better list of references, consult Refs. [H.W. Grießhammer, T.R. Hemmert, Phys. Rev. C 65 (2002) 045207, nucl-th/0110006; R.P. Hildebrandt, H.W. Grießhammer, T.R. Hemmert, B. Pasquini, Eur. Phys. J. A 20 (2004) 293, nucl-th/0307070; R.P. Hildebrandt, H.W. Grießhammer, T.R. Hemmert, Eur. Phys. J. A 20 (2004) 329, nucl-th/0308054; R.P. Hildebrandt, H.W. Grießhammer, T.R. Hemmert, D.R. Phillips, Eur. Phys. J. A, nucl-th/0405077 (in press)].