Parton Distributions in the pion from lattice QCD

Journal Article · Sat Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 2003

OSTI ID:809011

Detmold, W; Melnitchouk, Wally; Thomas, Anthony

We analyze the moments of parton distribution functions in the pion calculated in lattice QCD, paying particular attention to their chiral extrapolation. Using the lowest three non-trivial moments calculated on the lattice, we assess the accuracy with which the x-dependence of both the valence and sea quark distributions in the pion can be extracted. The resulting valence quark distributions at the physical pion mass are in fair agreement with existing Drell-Yan data, but the statistical errors are such that one cannot yet confirm (or rule out) the large-x behavior expected from hadron helicity conservation in perturbative QCD. One can expect, however, that the next generation of calculations in lattice QCD will allow one to extract parton distributions with a level of accuracy comparable with current experiments.

• Research Organization: Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84ER40150
• OSTI ID: 809011
• Report Number(s): JLAB-THY-03-28; DOE/ER/40150-2460
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ACCURACY
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
ENANTIOMORPHS
EXTRAPOLATION
HADRONS
HELICITY
PARTONS
PIONS
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUARKS
SEAS
VALENCE