What is Measured in Hard Exclusive Electroproduction?

We examine the relation between amplitudes measured in exclusive lepto-production and the quark content of the nucleon. We show that in the limit of high energy and small t, the natural interpretation of amplitudes measured in these hard exclusive processes is in terms of the quark content of the meson cloud and not the target itself. In this regime, Regge amplitudes will make a significant contribution to these exclusive amplitudes. This leads to violation of QCD scaling.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Identification of non-ordinary mesons from the dispersive connection between their poles and their Regge trajectories: the f0(500) resonance

We show how the Regge trajectory of a resonance can be obtained from its pole in a scattering process and analytic constraints in the complex angular momentum plane. The method is suited for resonances that dominate an elastic scattering amplitude. In particular, from the rho(770) resonance pole in pion-pion scattering, we obtain its linear Regge trajectory, characteristic of ordinary quark-antiquark states. In contrast, the f0(500) pole -the sigma meson- which dominates scalar isoscalar pion-pion scattering, yields a non-linear trajectory with a much smaller slope at the f0(500) mass. Conversely, imposing a linear Regge trajectory for the f0(500), with a slope of typical size, yields an elastic amplitude at odds with the data. This provides strong support for the non-ordinary nature of the sigma meson.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Illuminating the 1/x moment of parton distribution functions

The Weisberger relation, an exact statement of the parton model, elegantly relates a high-energy physics observable, the 1/x moment of parton distribution functions, to a nonperturbative low-energy observable: the dependence of the nucleon mass on the value of the quark mass or its corresponding quark condensate. We show that contemporary fits to nucleon structure functions fail to determine this 1/x moment; however, deeply virtual Compton scattering can be described in terms of a novel F_{1/x}(t) form factor which illuminates this physics. An analysis of exclusive photon-induced processes in terms of the parton-nucleon scattering amplitude with Regge behavior reveals a failure of the high Q^2 factorization of exclusive processes at low t in terms of the Generalized Parton-Distribution Functions which has been widely believed to hold in the past. We emphasize the need for more data for the DVCS process at large t in future or upgraded facilities.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, invited contribution to the 11th International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon, sept. 10th-14th 2007, Juelich, German

Regge trajectory of the f_0(500) resonance from a dispersive connection to its pole

We report here our results on how to obtain the Regge trajectory of a resonance from its pole in a scattering process by imposing analytic constraints in the complex angular momentum plane. The method, suited for resonances that dominate an elastic scattering amplitude, has been applied to the {\rho}(770) and the f_0(500) resonances. Whereas for the former we obtain a linear Regge trajectory, characteristic of ordinary quark-antiquark states, for the latter we find a non-linear trajectory with a much smaller slope at the resonance mass. This provides a strong indication of the non-ordinary nature of the sigma meson.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the "Seventh International Symposium on Chiral Symmetry in Hadrons and Nuclei

Separation of Soft and Hard Physics in DVCS

A model for deeply virtual Compton scattering, based on analytical light-cone hadron wave functions is presented and studied at energies currently accessible at Jefferson Laboratory and DESY. It is shown that poles and perpendicular vector components play an important role at Q^2 < 10 GeV^2. A Q^2 suppressed diagram has to be included at these low energies, but becomes negligible above 10 GeV^2. Future prospects and developments of this model are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, uses ws-procs9x6.cls, to appear in Proceedings of the Exclusive Processes at High-t Workshop at Jefferson Lab, May 15-18 200