The target asymmetry for electroproduction of vector mesons is investigated within the handbag approach. While the generalized parton distribution (GPD) H is taken from a previous analysis of the elctroproduction cross section, we here construct the GPD E from double distributions and constrain it by the Pauli form factors of the nucleon, positivity bounds and sum rules. Predictions for the target asymmetry are given for various vector mesons and discussed how experimental data on the asymmetry will further constrain E and what we may learn about the angular momenta the partons carry.
We argue that the electroproduction of exotic particles is a useful tool for study of their partonic structure. In the case of hybrid mesons, the magnitude of their cross sections shows that they are accessible for measurements in existing electroproduction experiments.
We evaluate the differential cross section for the electroproduction of lepton pairs off a polarized nucleon target in the generalized Bjorken region to leading power accuracy in hard momentum. We discuss the importance of this process for phenomenology of generalized parton distributions. A special attention is given to the sensitivity of physical observables, i.e., diverse asymmetries, to their dependence on scaling variables that allows to map directly the functional two-dimensional surface of generalized parton distributions.
Off-diagonal parton distributions occur in several hard exclusive reactions. They extend the study of hadron structure beyond what can be learned from ordinary distributions and have a particularly rich spin structure. The hard scattering subprocesses in electroproduction of mesons and of real photons satisfy helicity selection rules, which provide powerful tools to test leading-twist dominance at a given value of the hard scale.
Exclusive $π^o$ electroproduction is suggested for extracting both the tensor charge and the transverse anomalous magnetic moment from experimental data. A connection between partonic degrees of freedom, given in terms of Generalized Parton Distributions, and Regge phenomenology is discussed. Calculations are performed using a physically motivated parametrization that is valid at values of the skewness, $ζ\neq 0$. Our method makes use of information from the nucleon form factor data, from deep inelastuc scattering parton distribution functions, and from lattice results on the Mellin moments of…
A consistent description of exclusive photoproduction of mesons at high momentum transfer t relies on a few effective degrees of freedom which can be checked against Lattice calculation or more effective models of QCD.
Assuming the proton's light-cone wave function to be dominated by small parton virtualities and small intrinsic transverse momenta, we show that the electroproduction amplitudes at large momentum transfer factorize into parton-level subprocess amplitudes and form factors representing 1/x-moments of skewed parton distributions. On the basis of a wave function overlap model for the form factors we present detailed predictions for the electroproduction cross sections. We also comment on large momentum transfer photoproduction.
The end-point contributions in the quark longitudinal momentum fraction of the virtual photon ($γ^*$) to vector meson ($V$) impact factor to the diffractive electroproduction amplitude can be factorized in terms of a generalized parton evolution of the target parton distribution. The result is used to model the helicity amplitudes $γ^* p \to V p$ in terms of small $x$ generalized parton distributions.
Using a physically motivated parameterization based on the reggeized diquark model we perform a flavor separation of the chiral-odd generalized parton distributions obtained from both $π^0$ and $η$ exclusive electroproduction. In our approach we exploit a connection between the chiral-even and chiral-odd reduced helicity amplitudes using Parity transformations that are relevant for a class of models that includes two-component models. We compare our results for $η$ production to the previously obtained $π^0$ results, and we make predictions for the transverse single spin asymmetry components w…
It is reported on an analysis of electroproduction of light vector mesons at small Bjorken-x within the handbag approach. The partonic subprocesses, meson electroproduction off quarks or gluons, are calculated within the modified perturbative approach in which quark transverse momenta are retained. The soft hadronic matrix elements, generalized parton distributions, are constructed from the CTEQ6 parton distribution functions by means of double distributions. The cross sections for longitudinal polarized virtual photons evaluated from this approach, are in very good agreement with experiment i…
It is reported on a global analysis of hard vector-meson electroproduction which is based on the handbag factorization. The generalized parton distributions are constructed from their forward limits with the help of double distributions and the partonic subprocesses are calculated within the modified perturbative approach.
We present a method to combine next-to-leading order (NLO) matrix elements in QCD with leading logarithmic parton showers by applying a suitably modified version of the phase-space-slicing method. The method consists of subsuming the NLO corrections into a scale-dependent phase-space-slicing parameter, which is then automatically adjusted to cut out the leading order, virtual, soft and collinear contributions in the matrix element calculation. In this way a positive NLO weight is obtained, which can be redistributed by a parton shower algortihm. As an example, we display the method for single-…
Exclusive electroproduction of a K or K^* meson on the nucleon can give a Theta^+ pentaquark in the final state. This reaction offers an opportunity to investigate the structure of pentaquark baryons at parton level. We discuss the generalized parton distributions for the N -> Theta^+ transition and give the leading order amplitude for electroproduction in the Bjorken regime.
We present a simple physical description of the off-diagonal gluon distribution g (x,x^\prime,Q^2) and splitting function P_{gg}(x,x^\prime) which enter the amplitude for diffractive vector meson production. We study the off-diagonal effects both on the evolution in Q^2 and on the input distribution. We predict the ratio $R$ of the off-diagonal to the diagonal gluon density, x^\prime g(x,x^\prime,Q^2)/xg(x, Q^2), as a function of the kinematic variables.
Exclusive $π^o$ electroproduction and related processes are suggested to investigate the chiral odd transversity distributions of quarks in the transversely polarized nucleon, $h_1(x)$, and its first moment, the tensor charge. The connection between a description based on partonic degrees of freedom, given in terms of generalized parton distributions, and Regge phenomenology is explored.
Exclusive electroproduction of a K or K* meson on the nucleon can give a Theta+ pentaquark in the final state. This reaction offers an opportunity to investigate the structure of pentaquark baryons at parton level. We discuss the generalized parton distributions for the N-->Theta+ transition and give the leading order amplitude for electroproduction in the Bjorken regime. Different production channels contain complementary information about the distribution of partons in a pentaquark compared with their distribution in the nucleon. Measurement of these processes may thus provide deeper insight…
We estimate the leading order amplitudes for exclusive photon and meson electroproduction reactions at large Q^2 in the valence region in terms of skewed quark distributions. As experimental investigations can currently only be envisaged at moderate values of Q^2, we estimate power corrections due to the intrinsic transverse momentum of the partons in the meson wavefunction and in the nucleon. To this aim the skewed parton distribution formalism is generalized so as to include the parton intrinsic transverse momentum dependence. Furthermore, for the meson electroproduction reactions, we calcul…
We discuss the recent data of exclusive $π^0$ (and $π^+$) electroproduction on the proton obtained by the CLAS collaboration at Jefferson Lab. It is observed that the cross sections, which have been decomposed in $σ_T +εσ_L$, $σ_{TT}$ and $σ_{LT}$ structure functions, are dominated by transverse amplitude contributions. The data can be interpreted in the Generalized Parton Distribution formalism provided that one includes helicity-flip transversity GPDs.
We formulate and prove a QCD factorization theorem for hard exclusive electroproduction of mesons in QCD. The proof is valid for the leading power in Q and all logarithms. This generalizes previous work on vector meson production in the diffractive region of small x. The amplitude is expressed in terms of off-diagonal generalizations of the usual parton densities. The full theorem applies to all kinds of meson and not just to vector mesons. The parton densities used include not only the ordinary parton density, but also the helicity density (g_1 or $Δq$) and the transversity density ($h_1$ or …
Exclusive meson leptoproduction from nucleons in the deeply virtual exchanged boson limit can be described by generalized parton distributions (GPDs). Including spin dependence in the description requires 8 independent quark-parton and gluon-parton functions. The chiral even subset of 4 quark-nucleon GPDs are related to nucleon form factors and to parton distribution functions. The chiral odd set of 4 quark-nucleon GPDs are related to transversity, the tensor charge, and other quantities related to transversity. Different meson or photon production processes access different combinations of GP…
A possibility to study Regge and factorized parameterizations of generalized parton distributions in hard electroproduction of $ρ^0$ on the proton is considered. For that the dependences of the differential cross sections on the transferred momentum for these parameterizations are compared.
It is reported on an analysis of electroproduction of light mesons at small Bjorken-x within the handbag approach. The partonic subprocesses, meson electroproduction off quarks or gluons, are calculated within the modified perturbative approach in which quark transverse momenta are retained. The soft hadronic matrix elements, generalized parton distributions, are constructed by means of double distributions. The constraints from parton distributions and sum rules are taken into account. Various moments of these generalized parton distributions are compared to recent results from lattice gauge …
Exclusive $π^0$ electroproduction from nucleons at large $Q^2$ can be described by Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs), particularly the chiral odd subset related to transversity. These GPDs can be accessed experimentally from various cross sections and asymmetries. We calculate these GPDs in a spectator model, constrained by boundary functions. Alternatively, in a hadronic picture the meson production amplitudes correspond to C-odd Regge exchanges with final state interactions. The helicity structure provides relations between the partonic and the hadronic, Regge description of C-odd, chi…
We discuss the electroproduction of light vector mesons from transversely polarized photons. Here QCD factorization cannot be applied as shown explicitly in a leading order calculation of corresponding Feynman diagrams. It is emphasized that present infrared singular contributions cannot be regularized through phenomenological meson distribution amplitudes with suppressed endpoint configurations. We point out that infrared divergencies arise also from integrals over skewed parton distributions of the nucleons. In a phenomenological analysis of transverse vector meson production model dependent…
Vector meson electroproduction is analyzed within the two-gluon (2G) model and the generalized parton distribution (GPD) approach at small $x$-Bjorken. We demonstrate that 2G and GPD models are not completely equivalent. At the same time, both models are in reasonable agreement with available experimental data on light vector meson electroproduction.
We discuss the possibility of measuring generalized parton distributions in exclusive electroproduction of mesons off the nucleon and estimate the uncertainty from perturbatively induced higher-twist corrections. We find that, while the magnitude of the cross section changes significantly taking into account twist-four contributions modeled via renormalons, the transverse spin asymmetry is weakly sensitive to them and displays the precocious scaling.
We suggest the measurement of exclusive electroproduction of lepton pairs as a tool to study inter-parton correlations in the nucleon via generalized parton distributions in the kinematical region where this process is light-cone dominated. We demonstrate how the single beam-spin asymmetry allows to perform such kind of analysis and give a number of predictions for several experimental setups. We comment on other observables which allow for a clean separation of different species of generalized parton distributions.
We discuss the interpretation of the $ep\to epρ^0$ process in terms of, on the one hand, Generalized Parton Distributions and, on the other hand, an effective hadronic model based on Regge theory.
We analyze electroproduction of light vector meson at small Bjorken $x$ within the generalized parton distribution (GPD) approach. Calculation is based on the modified perturbative approach, where the quark transverse degrees of freedom in the hard subprocess are considered. Our results on the cross section are in fair agreement with experiment from HERMES to HERA energies.
An analysis of light vector meson photoproduction at small Bjorken $x \leq 0.2$ is done on the basis of the generalized parton distributions (GPDs). Our results on the cross section and spin density matrix elements (SDME) are in good agreement with experiments.
The hard exclusive electroproduction processes provide new information about hadronic structure accumulated in nonforward parton distributions. The NFPD's are universal hybrid functions having the properties of parton densities, hadronic form factors and distribution amplitudes. They give a unified description of various hard exclusive and inclusive reactions. The basic supplier of information about nonforward parton distributions is deeply virtual Compton scattering which offers a remarkable example of Bjorken scaling phenomena in exclusive processes. Wide-angle real Compton scattering is an …
We study light vector meson electroproduction at small $x$ within the generalized parton distributions (GPDs) model. The modified perturbative approach is used, where the quark transverse degrees of freedom in the vector meson wave function and hard subprocess are considered. Our results on the cross section and spin observables are in good agreement with experiment
Exclusive electroproduction of hard dijets can be described within the collinear factorization. This process has clear experimental signature and provides one with an interesting alternative venue to test QCD description of hard diffractive processes and extract information on generalized nucleon parton distributions. In this work we present detailed leading-order QCD calculations of the relevant cross sections, including longitudinal momentum fraction distribution of the dijets and their azimuthal angle dependence.
Exclusive pi0 electroproduction from nucleons at large photon virtuality can be described in terms of Generalized Parton Distributions, particularly the chiral odd subset. Chiral odd GPDs are related to transversity and can be accessed experimentally for various special choices of observables. This is accomplished by choosing C-parity odd and chiral odd combinations of t-channel exchange quantum numbers. These GPDs are calculated in a spectator model, and are constrained by boundary functions. Alternatively, the production amplitudes correspond to C-odd Regge exchanges with final state interac…
One principal motivation for studying exclusive reactions is that they provide a new class of observables, called off-diagonal parton distributions, for the internal structure of the nucleon. The study of exclusive reactions provides a probe of nucleon structure complementary to purely inclusive studies. The simplest, and possibly the most promising, type of experiment is exclusive electroproduction of pseudoscalar mesons at small t, and at large Q2 and W. We show that using the CLAS spectrometer at JLAB and with beam energies between 4 and 6 GeV, we can obtain good quality electroproduction d…
We use perturbative QCD and parton-hadron duality to estimate the cross sections for the diffractive electroproduction of rhoprime(1-) and rho(3-) resonances which occur in the 1.3-1.8 GeV mass interval. We present the cross sections and the ratios sigma_L/sigma_T as a function of Q^2. We compare the predictions with those for the diffractive electroproduction of rho mesons. We show how such diffractive electroproduction measurements at HERA can probe features of the perturbative QCD 'Pomeron'.
In this paper, after a brief summary of the properties of the Off-Forward Parton Distributions, we give some examples of what could be the experimental opportunities to access them at the current high-energy lepton facilities : JLab (E_e >= 6 GeV), HERMES (E_e = 27 GeV) and COMPASS (E_mu = 200 GeV).
The process of a light neutral vector meson electroproduction is studied in the framework of QCD factorization in which the amplitude factorizes in a convolution of the nonperturbative meson distribution amplitude and the generalized parton densities with the perturbatively calculable hard-scattering amplitudes. We derive a complete set of hard-scattering amplitudes at next-to-leading order for the production of vector mesons, $V=ρ^0, ω, ϕ$.
The process of a light neutral vector meson electroproduction is studied in the framework of QCD factorization in which the amplitude factorizes in a convolution of the nonperturbative meson distribution amplitude and the generalized parton densities with the perturbatively calculable hard-scattering amplitudes. We derive a complete set of hard-scattering amplitudes at next-to-leading order (NLO) for the production of vector mesons, $V=ρ^0, ω, ϕ$.
The overlap representation of skewed parton distributions is discussed and applications to wide-angle Compton scattering and electroproduction of mesons are presented. The amplitudes for these processes factorise into parton-level subprocess amplitudes and form factors representing 1/x-moments of skewed parton distributions.
The conventional NLO parton model is enough for the description of total cross sections and one-particle distributions. In the case of two-particle correlations, the collinear approximation has failed, and it is necessary to account for the transverse momenta of initial partons. The different possibilities to do this are discussed.
We give predictions for the leading order amplitudes for deeply virtual Compton scattering and hard meson electroproduction reactions at large Q^2 in the valence region in terms of skewed quark distributions. We give first estimates for the power corrections to these leading order amplitudes. In particular, we outline examples of experimental opportunities to access the skewed parton distributions at the current high-energy lepton facilities : JLab, HERMES and COMPASS.
We discuss exclusive vector meson electroproduction within the QCD collinear factorization framework. In Bjorken kinematics the amplitude factorizes in a convolution of the nonperturbative meson distribution amplitude and the generalized parton densities with the perturbatively calculable hard-scattering amplitudes, which are presently known to next-to-leading order (NLO). At small $x_{\rm B}$ NLO corrections are very large. It is related to appearance of BFKL type logarithms in the hard-scattering amplitudes, that calls for a resummation of these effects at higher orders. Here we report the f…
We give a general formula for the cross section for diffractive vector meson electroproduction, gamma^* p -> Vp. We first calculate diffractive qqbar production, and then use parton-hadron duality by projecting out the J^P = 1^- state in the appropriate mass interval. We compare the Q^2 dependence of the cross section for the diffractive production of rho and J/psi mesons with recent HERA data. We include the characteristic Q^2 dependence associated with the use of the skewed gluon distribution. We give predictions for sigma_L/sigma_T for both rho and J/psi production.
The quark-parton model calculation including the effects of intrinsic transverse momentum and of all six twist-two distribution functions of quarks in polarized nucleons is performed. It is demonstrated that new twist-two quark distribution functions and polarized quark fragmentation functions can be investigated in semi-inclusive DIS at leading order in $Q^2$. The general expression for the cross-section of semi-inclusive DIS of polarized leptons on polarized nucleons in terms of structure functions is also discussed.
Several methods to improve the parton-shower description of hard processes by an injection of matrix-element-based information have been presented over the years. In this article we study (re)weighting schemes for the first/hardest emission. One objective is to provide a consistent matching of the POWHEG next-to-leading order generator to the Pythia shower algorithms. Another is to correct the default behaviour of these showers at large transverse momenta, based on a comparison with real-emission matrix elements.
We perform calculations of Z+jet cross-section taking into account the transverse momenta of the initial partons. Transverse Momentum Dependent (TMD) parton densities obtained with the Parton Branching method are used and higher order corrections are included via TMD parton showers in the initial state. The predictions are compared to measurements of forward Z+jet production of the LHCb collaboration at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV. We show that the results obtained in kT-factorization are in good agreement with results obtained from a NLO calculation matched with traditional parton showers. We also demon…
The cross section for transverse momentum dependent double parton scattering involves transverse momentum dependent double parton distributions (DTMDs). In the region of perturbative transverse momentum the DTMDs can be matched onto collinear double parton distributions. We present the framework and results for this matching, as well as the evolution equations for DTMDs in the region of large distance between the two partons. We discuss explicit results for one-loop matching coefficients and evolution kernels.
Generalized parton distributions of the nucleon are accessed via exclusive leptoproduction of the real photon. While earlier analytical considerations of phenomenological observables were restricted to twist-three accuracy, i.e., taking into account only terms suppressed by a single power of the hard scale, in the present study we revisit this differential cross section within the helicity formalism and restore power-suppressed effects stemming from the process kinematics exactly. We restrict ourselves to the phenomenologically important case of lepton scattering off a longitudinally polarized…
The partonic transverse momentum, k_t distribution plays a crucial role in driving high-energy hadron interactions. If k_t is limited we have old fashioned Regge Theory. If k_t increases with energy the interaction may be described by perturbative QCD. We use BFKL diffusion in ln k_t, supplemented by a stronger absorption of low k_t partons, to estimate the growth of the mean transverse momenta <k_t> with energy. This growth reveals itself in the distribution of secondaries produced at the collider energies. We present a simple, BFKL-based, model to demonstrate the possible size of the effect.…
Recently, there have been some interesting developments involving off-forward parton distributions of the nucleon, deeply virtual Compton scattering, and hard diffractive vector-meson production. These developments are triggered by the realization that the off-forward distributions contain information about the internal spin structure of the nucleon and that diffractive electroproduction of vector mesons depends on these unconventional distributions. This paper gives a brief overview of the recent developments.
