Electromagnetic Transition Form Factors of Light Mesons

Abstract

We study selected meson transition processes and associated form factors within a model of QCD based on the Dyson--Schwinger equations truncated to ladder-rainbow level. The infrared structure of the ladder-rainbow kernel is described by two parameters; the ultraviolet behavior is fixed by the one-loop renormalization group behavior of QCD. The work is restricted to the u and d quark sector and allows a Poincare'-covariant study of the radiative decays: rho -> pi + gamma, omega -> pi + gamma, and pi^0 -> gamma + gamma. Particular attention is paid to the form factors for the associated transitions: gamma^* + pi^0 -> gamma, gamma^* + pi^0 -> gamma^*, gamma^* + pi -> rho and gamma^* + rho -> pi. The latter two processes are of interest as contributors to meson electroproduction from hadronic targets away from the s-channel resonance region. We use the present QCD model to explore limitations to the assumption that coupling to a t-channel virtual qbar-q correlation can be modeled as meson exchange.