Large momentum transfer electroproduction of mesons

Abstract

Assuming the proton's light-cone wave function to be dominated by small parton virtualities and small intrinsic transverse momenta, we show that the electroproduction amplitudes at large momentum transfer factorize into parton-level subprocess amplitudes and form factors representing 1/x-moments of skewed parton distributions. On the basis of a wave function overlap model for the form factors we present detailed predictions for the electroproduction cross sections. We also comment on large momentum transfer photoproduction.