Duality in Semi-Exclusive Processes

Abstract

Bloom-Gilman duality relates parton distributions to nucleon form factors and thus constrains the dynamics of exclusive processes. The quark electric charge dependence implies that exclusive scattering is incoherent on the quarks even at high momentum transfers. Data on semi-exclusive meson production exceeds the duality prediction by more than an order of magnitude and violates quark helicity conservation. This suggests that the subprocess is dominated by soft `endpoint' contributions which obey dimensional scaling. The large transverse size of the subprocess may explain the absence of color transparency in fixed angle processes.