Eur. Phys. J. A 47, 17 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2011-11017-4

The pion wave function in covariant light-front dynamics

Application to the calculation of various physical observables

¹ Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies, Groupe Théorie, Université Pierre et Marie Curie et Université Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, 4 place Jussieu, F-75252, Paris, France
² Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire, CNRS/IN2P3, Clermont Université, BP10448, F-63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France

Received: 27 September 2010
Accepted: 9 December 2010
Published online: 1 February 2011

Abstract

The structure of the pion wave function in the relativistic constituent quark model is investigated in the explicitly covariant formulation of light-front dynamics. We calculate the two relativistic components of the pion wave function in a simple one-gluon exchange model and investigate various physical observables: decay constant, charge radius, electromagnetic and transition form factors. We discuss the influence of the full relativistic structure of the pion wave function for an overall good description of all these observables, including both low and high momentum scales.