Hadron tomography in meson-pair production and gravitational form factors

Abstract

Generalized parton distributions (GPDs) are 3-dimensional (3D) structure functions for hadrons, and they are important for solving the proton spin puzzle including partonic orbital-angular-momentum contributions. The $s$-$t$ crossed quantities of the GPDs are generalized distribution amplitudes (GDAs). Here, $s$ and $t$ are Mandelstam variables. The GDAs can be studied in two-photon processes ($\gamma^* \gamma\to h \bar h$) at KEKB. A GDA describes the amplitude from quark and antiquark to the hadron pair $h \bar h$. In 2016, the Belle collaboration reported measurements for pion-pair production in electron-positron collision, and the pion GDAs were determined in this work by analyzing the Belle data. In our analysis, the pion GDAs are expressed by a few parameters, which are determined by analyzing the Belle data. From the obtained GDAs, form factors of energy-momentum tenor, so called gravitational form factors, are calculated for pion in the timelike region. The spacelike gravitational form factors are calculated from the timelike ones by using the dispersion relation. Then, the mass radius is calculated as 0.32-0.39 fm and the mechanical radius, defined by the slope of the form factor $\Theta_1$, is calculated as 0.82-0.88 fm for the pion by using the spacelike form factors. This is the first study on gravitational form factors and radii of hadrons from actual experimental measurements. In 2019, the Belle II collaboration will start collecting data by the higher luminosity Super KEKB, so that the GDAs of other hadrons should also be investigated in the near future. Our studies are valuable in understanding 3D structure and gravitational properties of hadrons.