Neutrino-production of a charmed meson and the transverse spin structure of the nucleon

TL;DR

This paper calculates the amplitude for exclusive neutrino-induced charmed meson production, revealing how transversity GPDs influence the transverse cross section and proposing a method to access these GPDs via azimuthal dependence.

Contribution

It introduces a calculation of the neutrino production amplitude including transversity GPDs and shows how to experimentally access these GPDs through azimuthal measurements.

Findings

Transversity GPDs contribute to the transverse cross section at order mc/Q.

Azimuthal dependence can be used to access transversity GPDs.

Theoretical framework for neutrino-induced charmed meson production.

Abstract

We calculate the amplitude for exclusive neutrino production of a charmed meson on an unpolarized target, in the colinear QCD approach where generalized parton distributions (GPDs) factorize from perturbatively calculable coefficient functions. We demonstrate that the transversity chiral odd GPDs contribute to the transverse cross section if the hard amplitude is calculated up to order mc/Q. We show how to access these GPDs through the azimuthal dependence of the nu N -> mu D N differential cross section.