Lattice QCD Determination of the Bjorken-$x$ Dependence of Parton Distribution Functions at Next-to-next-to-leading Order

TL;DR

This paper presents the first lattice QCD calculation of the pion's valence quark distribution at NNLO, using two fine lattices and a hybrid renormalization scheme to achieve reliable results across a broad x range.

Contribution

It introduces a novel NNLO perturbative matching and a hybrid renormalization scheme for lattice QCD calculations of parton distributions.

Findings

Reliable valence quark distribution for 0.03 < x < 0.80

Achieved 5-20% uncertainties in the distribution

Demonstrated the effectiveness of the hybrid renormalization scheme

Abstract

We report the first lattice QCD calculation of pion valence quark distribution with next-to-next-to-leading order perturbative matching correction, which is done using two fine lattices with spacings $a=0.04$ fm and $0.06$ fm and valence pion mass $m_\pi=300$ MeV, at boost momentum as large as $2.42$ GeV. As a crucial step to control the systematics, we renormalize the pion valence quasi distribution in the recently proposed hybrid scheme, which features a Wilson-line mass subtraction at large distances in coordinate space, and develop a procedure to match it to the $\overline{\rm MS}$ scheme. We demonstrate that the renormalization and the perturbative matching in Bjorken-$x$ space yield a reliable determination of the valence quark distribution for $0.03\lesssim x \lesssim 0.80$ with 5-20\% uncertainties.