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Sullivan Process near Threshold and the Pion Gravitational Form Factors

Yoshitaka Hatta and Jakob Schoenleber

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 251901 – Published 24 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/y9fq-y84c

Abstract

We propose a novel method to experimentally access the gravitational form factors of the charged pion π+ through the Sullivan process in electron-proton scattering. We demonstrate that the cross sections of J/ψ photoproduction and ϕ electroproduction near the respective thresholds are dominated by the gluon gravitational form factor of the pion to next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. We predict cross sections for the Electron-Ion Collider and the Jefferson Lab experiments.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 251901– Published 24 June, 2025
  • Received 20 February 2025
  • Revised 16 April 2025
  • Accepted 6 June 2025
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