CJK-Improved 5 Flavour LO Parton Distributions in the Real Photon

TL;DR

This paper presents improved leading-order parton distribution functions for the real photon, based on updated fits to F2^gamma data, with better treatment of the strong coupling and heavy-quark contributions, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of photon structure modeling.

Contribution

The paper introduces new LO photon parton distributions with refined high-x behavior and improved fit quality, incorporating heavy-quark contributions and uncertainty analysis.

Findings

Better fit quality with chi^2 per degree of freedom reduced by 0.25.

Realistic heavy-quark distributions consistent with LEP data.

Uncertainty estimates for the parton distributions using the Hessian method.

Abstract

Radiatively generated, LO quark (u,d,s,c,b) and gluon densities in the real, unpolarized photon, improved in respect to our previous paper, are presented. We perform three global fits to the F_2^gamma data, using the LO DGLAP evolution equation. We improve the treatment of the strong coupling running and used lower values of Lambda_QCD, as we have found that the too high values adopted in the previous work caused the high chi^2 of the fits. In addition to the modified FFNS_CJKL model, referred to as FFNS_CJK 1 we analyse a FFNS_CJK 2 model in which we take into account the resolved-photon heavy-quark contribution. New CJK model with an improved high-x behavior of the F_2^gamma(x,Q^2) is proposed. Finally, in the case of the CJK model we abandon the valence sum rule imposed on the VMD input densities. New fits give chi^2 per degree of freedom about 0.25 better than the old results. All features of the CJKL model, such as the realistic heavy-quark distributions, good description of the LEP data on the Q^2 dependence of the F_2^gamma and on F_2,c^gamma are preserved. Moreover we present results of an analysis of the uncertainties of the CJK parton distributions due to the experimental errors. It is based on the Hessian method used for the proton and very recently applied for the photon by one of us. Parton and structure function parametrizations of the best fits in both FFNS_CJK and CJK approaches are made accessible. For the CJK model we provide also sets of test parametrizations which allow for calculation of uncertainties of any physical value depending on the real photon parton densities.