Accessing baryon to meson transition distribution amplitudes in meson production in association with a high invariant mass lepton pair at GSI-FAIR with PANDA

TL;DR

This paper proposes a factorized approach to study baryon to meson transition distribution amplitudes via nucleon-antinucleon annihilation, estimating cross sections for meson production with lepton pairs at GSI-FAIR, which are measurable with PANDA.

Contribution

It introduces a novel factorization framework for baryon to meson transition distribution amplitudes in nucleon-antinucleon annihilation processes.

Findings

Cross sections for pion and eta meson production are sizable for GSI-FAIR conditions.

The approach enables phenomenological studies of baryon to meson transitions.

Measurements are feasible with the PANDA detector.

Abstract

Nucleon antinucleon annihilation into a near backward (or forward) produced meson and a high invariant mass lepton pair admits a factorized description in terms of antinucleon (or nucleon) distribution amplitudes and nucleon to meson (or antinucleon to meson) transition distribution amplitudes. We estimate the cross section of backward (and forward) pion and eta meson production in association with a high invariant mass lepton pair for the kinematical conditions of GSI-FAIR. The cross sections are found to be large enough to be measured with the PANDA detector. Interesting phenomenological applications of the approach are thus expected.