Physics Letters B 741 (2015) 190–196
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Sketching the pion’s valence-quark generalised parton distribution
C. Mezrag
a
, L. Chang
b
, H. Moutarde
a
, C.D. Roberts
c
, J. Rodríguez-Quintero
d
, F. Sabatié
a
,
S.M. Schmidt
e
a
Centre de Saclay, IRFU/Service de Physique Nucléaire, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
b
CSSM, School of Chemistry and Physics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005, Australia
c
Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA
d
Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias Experimentales, Universidad de Huelva, Huelva E-21071, Spain
e
Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, D-52425 Jülich, Germany
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
24 November 2014
Accepted
10 December 2014
Available
online 15 December 2014
Editor: A.
Ringwald
Keywords:
Deeply
virtual Compton scattering
Dynamical
chiral symmetry breaking
Dyson–Schwinger
equations
Generalised
parton distribution functions
π-meson
In order to learn effectively from measurements of generalised parton distributions (GPDs), it is desirable
to compute them using a framework that can potentially connect empirical information with basic
features of the Standard Model. We sketch an approach to such computations, based upon a rainbow-
ladder
(RL) truncation of QCD’s Dyson–Schwinger equations and exemplified via the pion’s valence
dressed-quark GPD, H
v
π
(x, ξ, t). Our analysis focuses primarily on ξ = 0, although we also capitalise on
the symmetry-preserving nature of the RL truncation by connecting H
v
π
(x, ξ =±1, t) with the pion’s
valence-quark parton distribution amplitude. We explain that the impulse-approximation used hitherto
to define the pion’s valence dressed-quark GPD is generally invalid owing to omission of contributions
from the gluons which bind dressed-quarks into the pion. A simple correction enables us to identify
a practicable improvement to the approximation for H
v
π
(x, 0, t), expressed as the Radon transform of
a single amplitude. Therewith we obtain results for H
v
π
(x, 0, t) and the associated impact-parameter
dependent distribution, q
v
π
(x, |
b
⊥
|), which provide a qualitatively sound picture of the pion’s dressed-
quark
structure at ahadronic scale. We evolve the distributions to a scale ζ = 2GeV, so as to facilitate
comparisons in future with results from experiment or other nonperturbative methods.
© 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
Quarks were discovered in a series of deep inelastic scattering
(DIS) experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [1–3].
When analysed in the infinite momentum frame, i.e., treating the
target as an extremely rapidly moving object, such experiments
yield parton distribution functions (PDFs). PDFs are probability
densities, which reveal how partons within the speeding target
share the bound-state’s gross properties; e.g., there are PDFs that
describe the distributions over the target’s constituent partons of
the total longitudinal momentum and helicity. Crucially, this prob-
ability
interpretation is only valid in the infinite-momentum frame
owing to its connection with quantisation on the light-front [4–6],
a procedure that ensures, inter alia, particle number conservation.
A
good deal is known about hadron light-front structure af-
ter
more than forty years of studying PDFs. Notwithstanding that,
much more needs to be understood, particularly, e.g., in connection
E-mail address: cdroberts@anl.gov (C.D. Roberts).
with the distribution of helicity [7,8]. Moreover, PDFs only describe
hadron light-front structure incompletely because inclusive DIS
measurements do not yield information about the distribution of
partons in the plane perpendicular to the bound-state’s total mo-
mentum, i.e.,
within the light front. Such information is expressed
in generalised parton distributions (GPDs) [9–12], which are acces-
sible
via deeply virtual Compton scattering on a target hadron, T ;
viz., γ
∗
(q)T (p) →γ
∗
(q
)T (p
), so long as at least one of the pho-
tons
[γ
∗
(q), γ
∗
(q
)] possesses large virtuality, and in the analo-
gous
process of deeply virtual meson production: γ
∗
(q)T (p) →
M(q
)T (p
). Importantly [see Section 2], GPDs connect PDFs with
hadron form factors because any PDF may be recovered as a for-
ward
limit of the relevant GPD and any hadron elastic form factors
can be expressed via a GPD-based sum rule. The potential that
GPDs hold for providing manifold insights into hadron structure
has led to intense experimental and theoretical activity [13–17].
Most
of the constraints that apply to GPDs are fulfilled when
the GPD is written as a double distribution [10,18,19], which is
equivalent to expressing the GPD as a Radon transform [20]:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2014.12.027
0370-2693/
© 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.