Nucleon and nuclear structure through dilepton production

TL;DR

This paper reviews how dilepton production processes can be used to image the three-dimensional structure of nucleons and nuclei, highlighting recent experimental and theoretical developments in time-like virtual probes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of dilepton production channels and proposes strategies for high-impact experimental measurements in nuclear structure studies.

Findings

Dilepton channels offer unique insights into nuclear structure.

High luminosity facilities enable detailed partonic imaging.

Strategies for future experiments are outlined.

Abstract

Transverse momentum distributions and generalized parton distributions provide a comprehensive framework for the three-dimensional imaging of the nucleon and the nucleus experimentally using deeply virtual semi-exclusive and exclusive processes. The advent of combined high luminosity facilities and large acceptance detector capabilities enables experimental investigation of the partonic structure of hadrons with time-like virtual probes, in complement to the rich on-going space-like virtual probe program. The merits and benefits of the dilepton production channel for nuclear structure studies are discussed within the context of the International Workshop on Nucleon and Nuclear Structure through Dilepton Production taking place at the European Center for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas (ECT$^{\star}$) of Trento. Particularly, the double deeply virtual Compton scattering, the time-like Compton scattering, the deeply virtual meson production, and the Drell-Yan processes are reviewed and a strategy for high impact experimental measurements is proposed.