Accessing chiral-even quark generalised parton distributions in the exclusive photoproduction of a γπ± pair with large invariant mass in both fixed-target and collider experiments

Abstract

We compute the exclusive photoproduction of a γπ± pair using the collinear factorisation framework, in the kinematic regime where the pair has a large invariant mass and the meson has a sufficiently large transverse momentum to not resonate with the outgoing nucleon. This exclusive channel presents a new avenue for the investigation of GPDs. It is particularly interesting as the high centre of mass energies available at future experiments will allow the study of GPDs at small skewness ξ. We compute the scattering amplitude of the process, at leading twist and leading order in αs, which is used to estimate its cross-section and linear polarisation asymmetries with respect to the incoming photon, for JLab 12-GeV, COMPASS, future EIC and LHC (in ultra-peripheral collisions) kinematics. We find that the order of magnitude of estimates are sufficiently large for a dedicated experimental analysis to be performed, especially at JLab. We also compare the results from an asymptotic distribution amplitude (DA) to those using a recently proposed holographic DA.