Pseudoscalar Meson Electroproduction Above the Resonance Region

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential of exclusive pseudoscalar meson electroproduction experiments at JLAB to explore nucleon structure through off-diagonal parton distributions, emphasizing the importance of such studies in understanding internal nucleon dynamics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that experiments with the CLAS spectrometer at JLAB can produce high-quality data to advance knowledge of nucleon structure via exclusive electroproduction of pseudoscalar mesons.

Findings

Good quality electroproduction data can be obtained at JLAB.

Such experiments probe off-diagonal parton distributions.

Results will enhance understanding of nucleon internal structure.

Abstract

One principal motivation for studying exclusive reactions is that they provide a new class of observables, called off-diagonal parton distributions, for the internal structure of the nucleon. The study of exclusive reactions provides a probe of nucleon structure complementary to purely inclusive studies. The simplest, and possibly the most promising, type of experiment is exclusive electroproduction of pseudoscalar mesons at small t, and at large Q2 and W. We show that using the CLAS spectrometer at JLAB and with beam energies between 4 and 6 GeV, we can obtain good quality electroproduction data that will improve our understanding of nucleon structure.