Exploring Partonic Structure of Hadrons Using ab initio Lattice QCD Calculations

Area of Science:

• High Energy Physics
• Quantum Chromodynamics
• Hadron Structure

Background:

• Understanding the internal structure of hadrons (like protons and neutrons) is crucial in particle physics.
• Lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) offers a non-perturbative approach to study these structures from first principles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel framework for calculating hadron structure from lattice QCD.
• To establish a method for extracting parton distribution functions (PDFs) from lattice QCD calculations.

Main Methods:

• Construction of a new class of "good lattice cross sections" (LCSs).
• Demonstration of LCSs' direct computability within lattice QCD.
• Factorization of LCSs into Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs) with calculable coefficients, analogous to QCD factorization.

Main Results:

• The proposed LCSs can be directly computed using lattice QCD.
• LCSs can be factorized into PDFs, allowing for their extraction.
• Existing methods for lattice QCD calculation of PDFs are shown to be special cases of these LCSs.

Conclusions:

• The developed LCSs provide a viable and direct method for studying hadron partonic structure via lattice QCD.
• This approach facilitates the extraction of PDFs through global QCD analysis of lattice data.
• The framework unifies and generalizes previous lattice QCD methods for PDF determination.