Nucleon-to-meson transition distribution amplitudes in impact parameter space

Abstract

Recent analyses of backward meson electroproduction support the validity of a collinear QCD factorization framework for these hard exclusive reactions. This opens a way to the extraction of nucleon-to-meson transition distribution amplitudes (TDAs) from the experimental data. Similarly to the generalized parton distributions, TDAs - after the Fourier transform in the transverse plane - carry valuable information on the transverse location of hadron constituents. We address the properties of integrated nucleon-to-meson TDAs in the impact parameter representation. We argue that the emerging picture provides an intuitive interpretation for the hadron structural information contained in nucleon-to-meson TDAs and allows to study diquark-quark contents of fast moving hadrons in the transverse plane.