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$D \to π$ transitions from QCD light-cone sum rules with the chiral currents

Di Gao ^1,2,3,*, Jiangshan Lan ^2,5,6,†, Duojie Jia ^4,7,‡, Xingbo Zhao ^2,5,6,§, and Yanjun Sun ^1,7,∥

¹Institute of Theoretical Physics, College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China
²Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
³Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospekt 53, 119991, Moscow, Russia
⁴General Education Center, Qinghai Institute of Technology, 810000, Xining, China
⁵School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
⁶CAS Key Laboratory of High Precision Nuclear Spectroscopy, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
⁷Lanzhou Center for Theoretical Physics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730070, China

^*Contact author: digao@impcas.ac.cn
^†Contact author: jiangshanlan@impcas.ac.cn
^‡Contact author: jiadj@nwnu.edu.cn
^§Contact author: xbzhao@impcas.ac.cn
^∥Contact author: sunyanjun@nwnu.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. D 114, 074002 – Published 1 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cp3w-8h7c

Abstract

We present a systematic study of the transition form factors for the semileptonic decays $D \to P e^{+} v_{e}$ and $D \to P μ^{+} {\bar{v}}_{μ}$ using QCD light-cone sum rules with chiral currents, with emphasis on the nonperturbative structure of the pion. The distribution amplitudes of the meson $π$ , including twist-2 and higher-twist components, are analyzed and incorporated in our computation, employing both Gegenbauer polynomial expansions and the basis light-front quantization method, where the latter yields a distribution that rapidly converges to the asymptotic form. Two relations linking transition form factors are derived and found to be consistent with the chiral symmetry of QCD. Our numerical predictions for the $D$ -to-pion form factors agree well with BESIII measurements and lattice QCD calculations. Furthermore, the differential decay widths obtained thereby for the $D$ -to-pion decay also show consistency with the BESIII data in the high-momentum-transfer ( $q$ ) region with the $q^{2} > 1 {GeV}^{2}$ , implying new opportunities for the precise extraction of the Cabibbo-Kabayashi-Maskawa matrix element and the exploration of physics beyond the standard model.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 074002– Published 1 October, 2026

Vol. 114, Iss. 7 — 1 October 2026

Received 22 May 2026
Accepted 2 September 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cp3w-8h7c

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

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$D \to π$ transitions from QCD light-cone sum rules with the chiral currents

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D→π transitions from QCD light-cone sum rules with the chiral currents

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Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

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References (94)

$D \to π$ transitions from QCD light-cone sum rules with the chiral currents