Exploring hadrons' partonic structure using ab initio lattice QCD calculations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to study the internal structure of hadrons by constructing lattice cross sections that can be directly calculated in lattice QCD and related to parton distribution functions.

Contribution

The authors develop a class of good lattice cross sections that enable ab initio calculation of hadron partonic structure and connect lattice results to PDFs via factorization.

Findings

Good lattice cross sections can be calculated directly in lattice QCD.

These cross sections can be factorized into PDFs with calculable coefficients.

Proposed functions for lattice PDFs are special cases of these good LCSs.

Abstract

Following our previous proposal [1], we construct a class of good "lattice cross sections" (LCSs), from which we could study partonic structure of hadrons from ab initio lattice QCD calculations. These good LCSs, on the one hand, can be calculated directly in lattice QCD, and on the other hand, can be factorized into parton distribution functions (PDFs) with calculable coefficients, in the same way as QCD factorization for factorizable hadronic cross sections. PDFs could be extracted from QCD global analysis of the lattice QCD generated data of LCSs. We also show that proposed functions for lattice QCD calculation of PDFs in the literature are special cases of these good LCSs.