Hard diffractive electroproduction of two pions

Abstract

We have calculated the leading order amplitude of hard diffractive electroproduction of two pions in lepton nucleon scattering. At the leading twist level a pion pair can be produced only in an isospin one or zero state. We have shown that isoscalar states are produced dominantly for x_{Bj}>0.3 and with an invariant mass of the two pions close to the threshold (S-wave) and in the f_2 resonance region (D-wave). These isoscalar pion pairs are dominantly produced by two collinear gluons. Comparing the production of charged and neutral pion pairs as a function of x_{Bj} and m_pipi one can get information about the gluonic component of two-pion distribution amplitudes.

Comments: Estimates of angular distributions are added