Pion electromagnetic form factor with Minkowskian dynamics

Abstract

The pion electromagnetic form factor has been calculated for the first time from the solutions of the Bethe-Salpeter equation, obtained directly in Minkowski space by using the Nakanishi integral representation of the Bethe-Salpeter amplitude. The one-gluon exchange kernel contains as inputs the quark and gluon masses, as well as a scale parameter featuring the extended quark-gluon vertex. The range of variability of these parameters is suggested by lattice calculations. After presenting a very successful comparison with the existing data in the whole range of the momentum transfer, we show how inserting the light-front (LF) formalism in our approach allows to achieve further interesting results, like the evaluation of the LF valence form factor and a first investigation of the end-points effects.

Keywords

• Bethe-Salpeter equation
• Pion electromagnetic form factor
• Minkowski-space dynamics