Parton distribution amplitudes of light vector mesons

TL;DR

This paper calculates the distribution amplitudes of light vector mesons using Dyson-Schwinger equations, revealing broad, concave shapes influenced by chiral symmetry breaking, and aligns well with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel calculation of rho- and phi-meson PDAs using a light-front projection of Bethe-Salpeter wave functions within a rainbow-ladder truncation.

Findings

PDAs are broad and concave, reflecting chiral symmetry breaking.

Valence-quark spatial extent varies with meson polarization.

Predicted rho-meson PDA matches experimental analysis.

Abstract

A rainbow-ladder truncation of QCD's Dyson-Schwinger equations is used to calculate rho- and phi-meson valence-quark (twist-two parton) distribution amplitudes (PDAs) via a light-front projection of their Bethe-Salpeter wave functions, which possess S- and D-wave components of comparable size in the meson rest frame. All computed PDAs are broad concave functions, whose dilation with respect to the asymptotic distribution is an expression of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. The PDAs can be used to define an ordering of valence-quark light-front spatial-extent within mesons: this size is smallest within the pion and increases through the perp-polarisation to the parallel-polarisation of the vector mesons; effects associated with the breaking of SU(3)-flavour symmetry are significantly smaller than those associated with altering the polarisation of vector mesons. Notably, the predicted pointwise behaviour of the rho-meson PDAs is in quantitative agreement with that inferred recently via an analysis of diffractive vector-meson photoproduction experiments.