Final state interactions and the Sivers function

Abstract

The non-vanishing of naive T-odd parton distributions function can be explained by the existence of the gauge link which emerges from the factorized description of the deep inelastic scattering cross section into perturbatively calculable and non-perturbative factors. This path ordered exponential describes initial / final-state interactions of the active parton due to soft gluon exchanges with the target remnants. Although these interactions are non-perturbative, studies of final state interactions have been approximated by perturbative one-gluon exchange in Abelian models. We include higher-order gluonic contributions from the gauge link by applying non-perturbative eikonal methods, incorporating color degrees of freedom in a calculation of the Sivers function. In this context we study the effects of color by considering the FSIs with Abelian and non-Abelian gluon interactions. We confirm the large $N_c$ QCD scaling behavior of Sivers functions and further uncover the deviations for finite $N_c$. Within this framework of FSIs we perform a quantitative check of approximate relations between T-odd TMDs and GPD which goes beyond the discussion of overall signs.