Critical analysis of recent results on electron and positron elastic scattering on proton

Recent data on the cross section ratio for electron and positron elastic scattering on protons are discussed. A deviation from unity of this ratio constitutes a model independent signature of charge-odd contributions that arise from mechanisms beyond the one-photon approximation, as the exchange of two photons. The relevance of this issue is related to that fact that the information on the proton structure from lepton elastic (and inelastic) scattering holds only within a formalism based on the one photon exchange approximation. The present analysis shows that the deviations of the data from unity and from a previously developed theoretical approach lie within the theoretical and experimental errors. The data suggest that other reasons for explanation of the discrepancy between the electromagnetic proton form factors extracted from the experiments according to the polarized and the unpolarized methods are more likely.