Generalized parton distributions and the parton structure of light nuclei

TL;DR

This paper investigates nuclear Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) of 3He using a microscopic approach, highlighting the importance of distinguishing conventional nuclear effects from exotic phenomena and discussing the potential of 3H targets and relativistic treatments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of 3He GPDs with a realistic microscopic model, emphasizing the significance of conventional effects and the potential of 3H targets for neutron structure studies.

Findings

Conventional nuclear effects can mimic exotic signals in GPD measurements.

3He is a key target for differentiating between conventional and exotic effects.

Relativistic effects are important for accurate GPD extraction.

Abstract

The measurement of nuclear Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) represents a valuable tool to understand the structure of bound nucleons and the phenomenology of hard scattering off nuclei. By using a realistic, non-relativistic microscopic approach for the evaluation of GPDs of 3He, it will be shown that conventional nuclear effects, such as isospin and binding ones, or the uncertainty related to the use of a given nucleon-nucleon potential, are bigger than in the forward case so that, if great attention is not paid, conventional nuclear effects can be easily mistaken for exotic ones. It is stressed that 3He, for which the best realistic calculations are possible, represents a unique target to discriminate between conventional and exotic effects. The complementary information which could be obtained by using a 3H target, the possible extraction of the neutron information, as well as the relevance of a relativistic treatment, will be also addressed.