Paper detail

Generalized parton distributions and the parton structure of light nuclei

The measurement of nuclear Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) represents a valuable tool to understand the structure of bound nucleons and the phenomenology of hard scattering off nuclei. By using a realistic, non-relativistic microscopic approach for the evaluation of GPDs of 3He, it will be shown that conventional nuclear effects, such as isospin and binding ones, or the uncertainty related to the use of a given nucleon-nucleon potential, are bigger than in the forward case so that, if great attention is not paid, conventional nuclear effects can be easily mistaken for exotic ones. It is stressed that 3He, for which the best realistic calculations are possible, represents a unique target to discriminate between conventional and exotic effects. The complementary information which could be obtained by using a 3H target, the possible extraction of the neutron information, as well as the relevance of a relativistic treatment, will be also addressed.