Emergence of pion parton distributions
Zhu-Fang Cui, Minghui Ding, José Manuel Morgado Chávez, Khépani Raya, Daniele Binosi, Lei Chang, F. De Soto, Craig D. Roberts, J. Rodrı́guez-Quintero, Sebastian M. Schmidt
Abstract
Supposing only that there is an effective charge which defines an evolution scheme for parton distribution functions (DFs) that is all-orders exact, strict lower and upper bounds on all Mellin moments of the valence-quark DFs of pionlike systems are derived. Exploiting contemporary results from numerical simulations of lattice-regularized quantum chromodynamics (QCD) that are consistent with these bounds, parameter-free predictions for pion valence, glue, and sea DFs are obtained. The form of the valence-quark DF at large values of the light-front momentum fraction is consistent with predictions derived using the QCD-prescribed behavior of the pion wave function.