Unveiling the inner structure of the pion first excited state

Abstract

By capturing the characteristics of the Bethe-Salpeter amplitude for the pion excitation state, we construct an algebraic model to provide the overall features of the pion first excitation state parton distribution amplitude and distribution function. We find that, at the hadronic scale, the distribution amplitude of the excited state exhibits nodes, while the distribution function is unimodal, with a peak at $x=1/2$ and distinct concave and convex fluctuations in the valence region. These findings provide new insights into the partonic structure of excited mesons and contribute significantly to our understanding of hadronic excitations.