Pion Electromagnetic Form Factor in the $K_T$ Factorization Formulae

Abstract

Based on the light-cone (LC) framework and the $k_T$ factorization formalism, the transverse momentum effects and the different helicity components' contributions to the pion form factor $F_π(Q^2)$ are recalculated. In particular, the contribution to the pion form factor from the higher helicity components ($λ_1+λ_2=\pm 1$), which come from the spin-space Wigner rotation, are analyzed in the soft and hard energy regions respectively. Our results show that the right power behavior of the hard contribution from the higher helicity components can only be obtained by fully keeping the $k_T$ dependence in the hard amplitude, and that the $k_T$ dependence in LC wavefunction affects the hard and soft contributions substantially. A model for the twist-3 wavefunction $ψ_p(x,\mathbf{k_\perp})$ of the pion has been constructed based on the moment calculation by applying the QCD sum rules, whose distribution amplitude has a better end-point behavior than that of the asymptotic one. With this model wavefunction, the twist-3 contributions including both the usual helicity components ($λ_1+λ_2=0$) and the higher helicity components ($λ_1+λ_2=\pm 1$) to the pion form factor have been studied within the modified pQCD approach. Our results show that the twist-3 contribution drops fast and it becomes less than the twist-2 contribution at $Q^2\sim 10GeV^2$. The higher helicity components in the twist-3 wavefunction will give an extra suppression to the pion form factor. When all the power contributions, which include higher order in $α_s$, higher helicities, higher twists in DA and etc., have been taken into account, it is expected that the hard contributions will fit the present experimental data well at the energy region where pQCD is applicable.