The Drell-Yan process with pions and polarized nucleons

TL;DR

This paper calculates all leading twist structure functions for pion-induced Drell-Yan processes using various models for TMDs, incorporating NLL evolution, and compares results with experimental data to enhance understanding of hadron structure.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive calculation of all leading twist structure functions for pion-induced Drell-Yan, including TMD evolution at NLL accuracy, and compares models with experimental data.

Findings

Results are compatible with initial experimental data.

TMD evolution at NLL is successfully implemented.

Models help interpret ongoing experimental results.

Abstract

The Drell-Yan process provides important information on the internal structure of hadrons including transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions (TMDs). In this work we present calculations for all leading twist structure functions describing the pion induced Drell-Yan process. The non-perturbative input for the TMDs is taken from the light-front constituent quark model, the spectator model, and available parametrizations of TMDs extracted from the experimental data. TMD evolution is implemented at Next-to-Leading Logarithmic precision for the first time for all asymmetries. Our results are compatible with the first experimental information, help to interpret the data from ongoing experiments, and will allow one to quantitatively assess the models in future when more precise data will become available.