arXiv subjects

C. Mezrag

Publications and source records attributed to C. Mezrag.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Extraction of DVCS amplitudes off the nucleon

This work presents a modern extraction of deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) amplitudes off the proton and off the neutron through a global analysis of experimental data. These amplitudes serve as a crucial intermediate quantity linking generalized parton distributions (GPDs) to experimental observables. The analysis relies on a novel extraction framework recently integrated into the PARTONS software ecosystem. We employ two distinct modelling approaches for the DVCS amplitudes, both utilizing machine learning techniques: one model-agnostic and the other theory-augmented. For the first time, we incorporate the extraction of helicity-flip amplitudes, which are particularly sensitive to higher-twist effects. Furthermore, we compare our extracted amplitudes to timelike Compton scattering (TCS) data using the established relations between DVCS and TCS, serving as an important test of universality of GPDs. We also extract the DVCS subtraction constant, for which ab initio predictions from lattice QCD have been obtained. This allows us to confront these predictions with DVCS data for the first time, initiating a new virtuous cycle between first-principles theory and phenomenology.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Electro- and photoproduction of muon pairs with $\mu$CLAS12: Double Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering, Timelike Compton Scattering, and $J/\psi$ production

The CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer for operation at 12 GeV (CLAS12) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has played a central role in advancing the understanding of nucleon and nuclear structure. As increasingly precise data become available, new physics opportunities emerge that extend beyond the current capabilities of CLAS12. In this article, a program to explore the quark and gluon structure of the nucleon through di-muon electro- and photoproduction is presented. Its primary focus is the measurement of beam-spin asymmetries in Double Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering, $ep \rightarrow e^\prime \mu^+ \mu^-p^\prime $. By independently varying the incoming and outgoing photon virtualities and momentum transfer, the DDVCS measurement provides access to the Generalized Parton Distributions over their full three-dimensional phase space, extending beyond the kinematic constraints of Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering and Timelike Compton Scattering. In addition, the large acceptance and high luminosity of the $\mu$CLAS12 experiment will enable precision measurements of near-threshold $J/\psi$ production and high-statistics studies of Timelike Compton Scattering.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2026

A Continuum Schwinger Method to Study the Pion's Generalized Parton Distribution

Generalised Parton Distributions (GPDs) provide multidimensional insight into hadron structure and are particularly relevant for the pion, whose dynamics are intimately linked to chiral symmetry breaking. We introduce a novel modelling strategy for pion GPDs that satisfies all QCD constraints by construction: support, polynomiality, positivity, and the soft-pion theorem. The approach is illustrated with a simple algebraic model, which is evolved and used to compute deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) Compton Form Factors at next-to-leading order. Our results indicate that gluons dominate the pion response at the Electron Ion Collider kinematics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

2025 EIC-France Workshop: Physics Highlights and Perspectives

This document presents a synthesis of the theory contributions and discussions from the 2nd EIC-France Workshop, held at IJCLab (Orsay) on 1-3 December 2025. The workshop brought together members of the French hadron-physics community to review recent theoretical developments relevant to the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) and to coordinate national efforts in preparation for its early physics program. The report first summarizes the collider's initial running conditions and luminosity performance, as outlined in the EIC Early Science Matrix. It then provides concise overviews of the theoretical presentations on inclusive, semi-inclusive, exclusive, heavy-flavor, and small-x physics. Based on these discussions, two measurements emerged as especially well suited for early EIC operation and strongly aligned with areas of established French expertise: inclusive diffraction and inclusive quarkonium production. These channels offer clean signatures, robust theoretical interpretability, and direct sensitivity to fundamental QCD phenomena such as gluon saturation, heavy-quark dynamics, and the small-x structure of hadrons and nuclei. In addition, the workshop identified longer-term physics opportunities that will benefit from the full capabilities of the EIC after its ramp-up phase. These include accessing the three-dimensional structure of the pion through the Sullivan process and a broader program of exclusive three-body final states, both of which represent high-impact avenues for exploring hadronic structure and non-perturbative QCD. Together, the elements summarized in this report provide a coherent overview of the strategic priorities and scientific ambitions shaping the French community's contribution to the EIC physics program.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Open database for GPD analyses

This article summarizes the main ideas behind creating an open database proposed for use in the exploration of generalized parton distributions (GPDs). This lightweight database is well suited for GPD phenomenology and is designed to store both experimental and lattice-QCD data. It can also aid in benchmarking GPD-related developments, such as GPD models. The database utilizes a new data format based on the YAML serialization language, enabling the storage of essential information for modern analyses, such as replica values. It includes interfaces for both Python and C++, allowing straightforward integration with analysis codes.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Lattice QCD extraction of the $\eta_{c}$-meson $t$-dependent parton distribution function

The formalism of short-distance factorization, conveyed through the pseudo-distribution approach, connects space-like and light-cone correlators and thus allows for the extraction in lattice QCD of a number of parton distributions. We compute the $t$-dependent parton distribution function of valence quarks in a $\eta_{c}$-meson. After reviewing the main ideas behind the pseudo-distribution formalism, and relying on the analytic structure of Ioffe-time distributions, we come up with a proposal for a model-independent extraction of $t$-dependent parton distribution functions. We present results for the $\eta_{c}$-meson Ioffe time valence $t$-dependent parton distribution function at a renormalization scale of $3~\textrm{GeV}$.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2024

Unraveling Generalized Parton Distributions Through Lorentz Symmetry and Partial DGLAP Knowledge

Relying on the polynomiality property of generalized parton distributions, which roots on Lorentz covariance, we prove that it is enough to know them at vanishing- and low-skewness within the DGLAP region to obtain a unique extension to their entire support up to a D-term. We put this idea in practice using two methods: Reconstruction using artificial neural networks and finite-elements methods. We benchmark our results against standard models for generalized parton distributions. In agreement with the formal expectation, we obtain a very accurate reconstructions for a maximal value of the skewness as low as 20% of the longitudinal momentum fraction. This result might be relevant for reconstruction of generalized parton distribution from experimental and lattice QCD data, where computations are for now, restricted in skewness.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Snowmass 2021 White Paper: Electron Ion Collider for High Energy Physics

Electron Ion Collider (EIC) is a particle accelerator facility planned for construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York by the United States Department of Energy. EIC will provide capabilities of colliding beams of polarized electrons with polarized beams of proton and light ions. EIC will be one of the largest and most sophisticated new accelerator facilities worldwide, and the only new large-scale accelerator facility planned for construction in the United States in the next few decades. The versatility, resolving power and intensity of EIC will present many new opportunities to address some of the crucial and fundamental open scientific questions in particle physics. This document provides an overview of the science case of EIC from the perspective of the high energy physics community.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Accessing the pion 3D structure at US and China Electron-Ion Colliders

We present in this letter the first systematic feasibility study of accessing generalised parton distributions of the pion at an electron-ion collider through deeply virtual Compton scattering at next-to-leading order. It relies on a state-of-the-art model, able to fulfil by construction all the theoretical constraints imposed on generalised parton distributions. Strikingly, our analysis shows that quarks and gluons interfere destructively and that gluon dominance could be spotted by a sign change of the DVCS beam spin asymmetry.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Shadow generalized parton distributions: a practical approach to the deconvolution problem of DVCS

Deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) attracts a lot of interest due to its sensitivity to generalized parton distributions (GPDs) which provide a rich access to the partonic structure of hadrons. However, the practical extraction of GPDs for this channel requires a deconvolution procedure, whose feasibility has been disputed. We provide a practical approach to this problem based on a next-to-leading order analysis and a careful study of evolution effects, by exhibiting shadow GPDs with arbitrarily small imprints on DVCS observables at current and future experimental facilities. This shows that DVCS alone will not allow for a model independent extraction of GPDs and a multi-channel analysis is required for this purpose.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

The deconvolution problem of deeply virtual Compton scattering

Generalised parton distributions are instrumental to study both the three-dimensional structure and the energy-momentum tensor of the nucleon, and motivate numerous experimental programmes involving hard exclusive measurements. Based on a next-to-leading order analysis and a careful study of evolution effects, we exhibit non-trivial generalised parton distributions with arbitrarily small imprints on deeply virtual Compton scattering observables. This means that in practice the reconstruction of generalised parton distributions from measurements, known as the deconvolution problem, does not possess a unique solution for this channel. In this Letter we discuss the consequences on the extraction of generalised parton distributions from data and advocate for a multi-channel analysis.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Diquark Correlations in Hadron Physics: Origin, Impact and Evidence

The last decade has seen a marked shift in how the internal structure of hadrons is understood. Modern experimental facilities, new theoretical techniques for the continuum bound-state problem and progress with lattice-regularised QCD have provided strong indications that soft quark+quark (diquark) correlations play a crucial role in hadron physics. For example, theory indicates that the appearance of such correlations is a necessary consequence of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, viz. a corollary of emergent hadronic mass that is responsible for almost all visible mass in the universe; experiment has uncovered signals for such correlations in the flavour-separation of the proton's electromagnetic form factors; and phenomenology suggests that diquark correlations might be critical to the formation of exotic tetra- and penta-quark hadrons. A broad spectrum of such information is evaluated herein, with a view to consolidating the facts and therefrom moving toward a coherent, unified picture of hadron structure and the role that diquark correlations might play.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

QCD2019 Workshop Summary

The topical workshop {\it Strong QCD from Hadron Structure Experiments} took place at Jefferson Lab from Nov. 6-9, 2019. Impressive progress in relating hadron structure observables to the strong QCD mechanisms has been achieved from the {\it ab initio} QCD description of hadron structure in a diverse array of methods in order to expose emergent phenomena via quasi-particle formation. The wealth of experimental data and the advances in hadron structure theory make it possible to gain insight into strong interaction dynamics in the regime of large quark-gluon coupling (the strong QCD regime), which will address the most challenging problems of the Standard Model on the nature of the dominant part of hadron mass, quark-gluon confinement, and the emergence of the ground and excited state hadrons, as well as atomic nuclei, from QCD. This workshop aimed to develop plans and to facilitate the future synergistic efforts between experimentalists, phenomenologists, and theorists working on studies of hadron spectroscopy and structure with the goal to connect the properties of hadrons and atomic nuclei available from data to the strong QCD dynamics underlying their emergence from QCD. These results pave the way for a future breakthrough extension in the studies of QCD with an Electron-Ion Collider in the U.S.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

PARTONS: PARtonic Tomography Of Nucleon Software. A computing framework for the phenomenology of Generalized Parton Distributions

We describe the architecture and functionalities of a C++ software framework, coined PARTONS, dedicated to the phenomenology of Generalized Parton Distributions. These distributions describe the three-dimensional structure of hadrons in terms of quarks and gluons, and can be accessed in deeply exclusive lepto- or photo-production of mesons or photons. PARTONS provides a necessary bridge between models of Generalized Parton Distributions and experimental data collected in various exclusive production channels. We outline the specification of the PARTONS framework in terms of practical needs, physical content and numerical capacity. This framework will be useful for physicists - theorists or experimentalists - not only to develop new models, but also to interpret existing measurements and even design new experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

A Nakanishi-based model illustrating the covariant extension of the pion GPD overlap representation and its ambiguities

A systematic approach for the model building of Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs), based on their overlap representation within the DGLAP kinematic region and a further covariant extension to the ERBL one, is applied to the valence-quark pion's case, using light-front wave functions inspired by the Nakanishi representation of the pion's Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes (BSA). This simple but fruitful pion's GPD model illustrates the general model building technique and, in addition, allows for the ambiguities related to the covariant extension, grounded on the Double Distribution (DD) representation, to be constrained by requiring a soft-pion theorem to be properly observed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Covariant Extension of the GPD overlap representation at low Fock states

We present a novel approach to compute Generalized Parton Distributions within the Lightfront Wave Function overlap framework. We show how to systematically extend Generalized Parton Distributions computed within the DGLAP region to the ERBL one, fulfilling at the same time both the polynomiality and positivity conditions. We exemplify our method using pion Lightfront Wave Functions inspired by recent results of non-perturbative continuum techniques and algebraic nucleon Lightfront Wave Functions. We also test the robustness of our algorithm on reggeized phenomenological parameterizations. This approach paves the way to a better understanding of the nucleon structure from non-perturbative techniques and to a unification of Generalized Parton Distributions and Transverse Momentum Dependent Parton Distribution Functions phenomenology through Lightfront Wave Functions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

An algebraic model for the pion's valence-quark GPD

We briefly report on a recent computation, with the help of a fruitful algebraic model, sketching the pion valence dressed-quark generalized parton distribution. Then, preliminary, we introduce on a sensible procedure to get reliable results in both Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) and Efremov-Radyushkin-Brodsky-Lepage (ERBL) kinematical regions, grounded on the GPD overlap representation and its parametrization of a Radon transform of the so-called double distribution (DD).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

From Bethe-Salpeter Wave Functions to Generalised Parton Distributions

We review recent works on the modelling of Generalised Parton Distributions within the Dyson-Schwinger formalism. We highlight how covariant computations, using the impulse approximation, allows one to fulfil most of the theoretical constraints of the GPDs. Specific attention is brought to chiral properties and especially the so-called soft pion theorem, and its link with the Axial-Vector Ward-Takahashi identity. The limitation of the impulse approximation are also explained. Beyond impulse approximation computations are reviewed in the forward case. Finally, we stress the advantages of the overlap of lightcone wave functions, and possible ways to construct covariant GPD models within this framework, in a two-body approximation.

nucl-th↗