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Pion parton distribution functions in the light-cone quark model and experimental constraints

Hari Govind P1,*, Satyajit Puhan1,2,†, Abhishek K. P.1,‡, Reetanshu Pandey1,§, Harleen Dahiya1,∥, Arvind Kumar1,¶, and Suneel Dutt1,**

  • *Contact author: harigovinduae@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: puhansatyajit@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: abhishekkunjunni@gmail.com
  • §Contact author: reetanshuhep@gmail.com
  • ∥Contact author: dahiyah@nitj.ac.in
  • Contact author: kumara@nitj.ac.in
  • **Contact author: dutts@nitj.ac.in
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 016010 – Published 10 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/q5rc-999c

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the valence quark parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the pion within the light-cone quark model. The initial quark PDFs are calculated by solving the quark-quark correlation function for the pseudoscalar mesons. The initial quark PDFs have been evolved to higher energy scales through the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) evolution equations. We also find that our calculated evolved PDFs match experimental and available theoretical extraction data. For the first time, we have also predicted the F2 structure function at next-to-leading (NLO) order accuracy. The calculated F2 structure function has been compared with the available ZEUS and H1 experimental data at DESY-HERA over a wide range of energy scales. Additionally, we display the forward pion production cross-section for the Drell-Yan process caused by pions using the pion PDFs that were calculated and the target nucleon PDFs from the LHAPDF nucleus datasets. The evolved F2 structure function of the pion has been studied at the upcoming electron-ion collider energy kinematics. Overall, it was observed that the quark PDFs of pions computed using the light-cone quark model are consistent with the experimental results.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 016010– Published 10 July, 2026
  • Received 7 April 2026
  • Accepted 10 June 2026
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