Exclusive leptoproduction of a light vector meson at the twist-3 in a GTMD framework

Abstract

We provide the most general description of the exclusive leptoproduction of a light vector meson, at high center-of-mass energy, within the CGC/shockwave formalism. We keep a twist-3 accuracy in $s$ channel, thus being able to describe all possible helicity amplitudes, including the ones for the production of a transversally polarized meson. In this latter case, we overcome the well-known issue of endpoint singularities by promoting the GPD to a GTMD given by matrix elements of dipole and double dipole operators. The all-twists treatment of the proton (nucleon) target allow to safely twist-expand the general vacuum-to-meson matrix elements. Therefore, unlike previous attempts in the modified perturbative approach, our final results are expressed in terms of the twist-3 collinear distribution amplitudes, introduced in the context of the higher-twist collinear formalism.

Comments: Presented at "Diffraction and Low-$x$ 2024'', Trabia (Palermo, Italy), September 8-14, 2024