Proton Structure Functions from Holographic Einstein-Dilaton Models

TL;DR

This paper develops a holographic Einstein-Dilaton model to compute proton structure functions, successfully matching experimental data and lattice QCD results for glueball masses and thermodynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel holographic framework based on Einstein-Dilaton models to calculate proton structure functions, extending previous approaches and aligning with lattice QCD and experimental data.

Findings

Accurately reproduces proton mass and structure functions at large x.

Matches lattice QCD glueball masses and thermodynamics.

Provides a successful holographic description of proton structure.

Abstract

We study the proton structure functions $F_1$ and $F_2$ in the context of holography. We develop a general framework that extends previous holographic calculations of $F_1$ and $F_2$ to the case where the bulk geometry stems from bottom-up Einstein-Dilaton models, which are commonly used in the literature to describe some properties of QCD in the strong coupling regime. We focus on a choice of the dilaton potential that leads to a holographic model able to reproduce known lattice QCD results for the glueball masses at zero temperature and pure Yang-Mills thermodynamics above deconfinement. Once the parameters of the background holographic model are fixed, we introduce probe fermionic and gauge fields in the bulk {\it a la} Polchinski and Strassler to determine the corresponding structure functions. This particular realization of the model can successfully describe the proton mass and provide results for $F_2$ at large $x$ in very good agreement with experimental data.