# Scaling violations and off-forward parton distributions: leading order and beyond

## Abstract

We give an outline of a formalism for the solution of the evolution equations for off-forward parton distributions in leading and next-to-leading orders based on partial conformal wave expansion and orthogonal polynomials reconstruction.

The off-forward parton distributions (OFPD) are new non-perturbative inputs used in exclusive electroproduction processes, like the hard diffractive production of mesons and the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS), to parametrize hadronic substructure . Their characteristic feature is a non-zero momentum transfer in the $`t`$-channel which results into different momentum fractions of constituents inside hadron.

The leading order amplitude, e.g. for the unpolarized DVCS, in Leipzig-Ji’s conventions used throughout , looks like

$$𝒜_1^1𝑑x\left\{\frac{1}{x\eta +i0}+\frac{1}{x+\eta i0}\right\}𝒪(x,\eta ),$$
(1)   
with the quark OFPD $`𝒪(x,\eta )`$ given as the Fourier transform of the light-cone string operator (in the light-cone gauge $`B_+=0`$)

$$𝒪(x,\eta )=2\frac{d\lambda }{2\pi }e^{i\lambda x}p_2|\overline{\psi }(\lambda n)\gamma _+\psi (\lambda n)|p_1,$$
(2)   
with the skewedness $`\eta (p_1p_2)_+`$ and the constraints $`x[1,1]`$ coming form the support properties of the matrix element (2). Several peculiar properties can be learned from these: i) Translating the perturbative arguments used in the proof of factorization formula (1) to non-perturbative domain we immediately see that the $`𝒜`$ exists provided the $`𝒪(\pm \eta ,\eta )`$ is continuous. ii) In different kinematical regions of the phase space OFPD’s share common properties with the usual forward parton densities ($`|x|>\eta `$) and exclusive distribution amplitudes ($`|x|<\eta `$), and thus hybrids in this sense. iii) The amplitude (1) manifests Bjorken scaling.

The last property is violated once the QCD radiative corrections are taken into account. The $`Q`$-dependence of the amplitude appears via the scale dependence of the OFPD’s which obey the generalized evolution equation 

$$\frac{d}{d\mathrm{ln}Q^2}𝓞(x,\eta )=_1^1𝑑x^{}𝑲(x,x^{},\eta )𝓞(x^{},\eta ),$$
(3)   
with the kernel given by the series in the coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$. The diagonalization of leading order kernel can be achieved exploiting the consequences of conformal invariance of QCD at classical level. The eigenstates of one-loop non-forward evolution equation are given by Gegenbauer polynomials, $`C_j^\nu `$, — with the numerical value of the index $`\nu `$ depending on the parton species, — which form an infinite dimensional irreducible representation of the conformal group in the space of bi-linear composite operators. Starting from two loop order the conformal operators start to mix and the simple pattern of one-loop evolution is broken so that the eigenfunctions generalize to non-polynomial functions. In the basis of leading order conformal waves

$$_1^1𝑑xC_j^\nu (\frac{x}{\eta })𝑲(x,x^{},\eta )=\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}𝜸_{jk}C_k^\nu \left(\frac{x^{}}{\eta }\right)$$
(4)   
the anomalous dimension matrix is not diagonal and possesses non-diagonal entries

$$𝜸_{jk}=𝜸_j^\mathrm{D}\delta _{jk}+𝜸_{jk}^{\mathrm{ND}},\text{with}𝜸_{jk}^{\mathrm{ND}}𝒪(\alpha _s^2).$$
(5)   
The disadvantage of the standard approach to the study of scaling violation beyond leading order is the proliferation of Feynman graphs required for calculation of $`𝜸_{jk}^{(1)}`$. Our approach which allows for an extremely concise analytical solution of the problem  is mainly based on four major observations: i) The triangularity of the anomalous dimension matrix $`𝜸_{jk}`$ implies that its eigenvalues are given by the diagonal elements and coincide with the well-known forward anomalous dimensions. ii) Tree-level special conformal invariance implies diagonal leading order matrix. One-loop violation of the symmetry induces non-diagonal elements, thus, one-loop special conformal anomaly will generate two-loop anomalous dimensions. iii) Scale Ward identity for the Green function with conformal operator insertion coincides with the Callan-Symanzik equation for the latter and thus the dilatation anomaly is the anomalous dimension of the composite operator $`[𝓞_j][𝑑x\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \mu }]\frac{1}{ϵ}_{k=0}^j𝜸_{jk}[𝓞_k]`$. iv) The four-dimensional conformal algebra provides a relation between the anomalies of dilatation and special conformal transformations via the commutator $`[𝒟,𝒦_{}]=i𝒦_{}`$. Using these ideas we have deduced the form of the two-loop non-diagonal elements to be 

$$𝜸^{\mathrm{ND}(1)}=[𝜸^{\mathrm{D}(0)},𝒅(\beta _0𝜸^{\mathrm{D}(0)})+𝒈]_{},$$
(6)   
where $`𝒅`$ is a simple matrix, $`𝜸_j^{\mathrm{D}(0)}`$ are the LO anomalous dimensions of the conformal operators and $`\beta _0`$ is the one-loop QCD Gell-Mann-Low function responsible for the violation of scale invariance. The most nontrivial information about the special conformal symmetry breaking is concentrated in the $`𝒈`$-matrices which are residues of the special conformal symmetry breaking counterterms at one-loop order $`[𝓞_j][𝑑xx_{}\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \mu }]\frac{\alpha _s}{ϵ}_{k=0}^ja(j,k)\left\{𝒈_{jk}+\mathrm{}\right\}[𝓞_k]`$.

Unfortunately the eigenfunctions of the evolution kernels cannot be used as a basis for expansion of OFPD since they do not form a complete set of functions outside the region $`|x/\eta |>1`$ where, however, the OFPD’s are nonvanishing in general. Our approach<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2Several LO methods are available on a market .  to the study of the scale dependence of the OFPD is based on the expansion of the distribution in series w.r.t. the complete set of orthogonal polynomials, $`𝒫_j(x)`$, on the interval $`1x1`$ to preserve the support properties of the functions in question

$$𝓞(x,\eta ,Q)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{J_{\mathrm{max}}}{}}\stackrel{~}{𝓟}_j(x)𝓜_j(\eta ,Q),$$
(7)   
where formally $`J_{\mathrm{max}}=\mathrm{}`$. The expansion coefficients can be reexpressed in terms of eigenstates of the evolution equation (3) according to

$`𝓜_j(\eta ,Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{j}{}}}𝑬_{jk}(\eta ){\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{k}{}}}\eta ^{kl}𝑩_{kl}(Q,Q_0)`$ (8)   
$`\times `$ $`𝓔_l(Q,Q_0)𝓞_l(\eta ,Q_0),`$   
where $`𝑬_{jk}(\eta )`$ is the overlap integral  between the one-loop eigenfunctions, $`C_j^\nu `$, and the polynomials $`𝓟_j`$. The conformal moments at a reference scale $`Q_0`$ are defined as

$$𝓞_j(\eta ,Q_0)=\eta ^j_1^1𝑑xC_j^\nu \left(\frac{x}{\eta }\right)𝓞(x,\eta ,Q_0).$$
(9)   
All scale dependence in Eq. (8) is extracted to the usual evolution operator which obeys the standard first order differential equation

$$\frac{d}{d\mathrm{ln}Q}𝓔+𝜸^\mathrm{D}𝓔=0.$$
(10)   
Besides there is an additional dependence on the hard momentum transfer, $`Q`$, which appears due to the mixing of the conformal operators between themselves in two-loop approximation. This dependence is governed by a new evolution equation of the form 

$$\frac{d}{d\mathrm{ln}Q}𝑩+[𝜸^\mathrm{D},𝑩]_{}+𝜸^{\mathrm{ND}}𝑩=0.$$
(11)   
Making use of these results we are in a position to study the evolution of OFPD explicitly. In order to save place let us address the non-singlet sector only. The rough features of the shape of OFPD can be gained from the perturbation theory itself. Assuming skewednessless input shown in Fig. 1 at a very low normalization point typical for phenomenological models of confinement we evolve it (with $`J_{\mathrm{max}}=80`$) upwards with momentum scale $`Q^2=100\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ (Fig. 2). The relative size of next-to-leading order effects is shown for given $`\eta `$ in Fig. 3. Clearly, NLO effects do not exceed the level of few percent in the non-singlet sector.

The specific feature of the evolution of the OFPD is that the partons with momentum fractions $`\eta <|x|<1`$ tend to penetrate into the ER-BL-type region and once they do it they never return back from the domain $`x[\eta ,\eta ]`$.

Acknowledgements. A.B. was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.