Abstract: We study the pion distribution amplitude (pi DA) in the context of a nonlocal chiral quark model. The corresponding Lagrangian reproduces the phenomenological values of the pion mass and decay constant, as well as the momentum dependence of the quark propagator obtained in lattice calculations. It is found that the obtained pi DA has two symmetric maxima, which arise from the new contributions generated by the nonlocal character of the interactions. This pi DA is applied to leading order and next-to-leading order calculations of the pion-photon transition form factor. Implications of the results are discussed.

Abstract: The eta-photon transition form factor is evaluated in a formalism based on a phenomenological description at low values of the photon virtuality, and a QCD-based description at high photon virtualities, matching at a scale Q(0)(2). The high photon virtuality description makes use of a distribution amplitude calculated in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with Pauli-Villars regularization at the matching scale Q(0)(2), and QCD evolution from Q(0)(2) to higher values of Q(2). A good description of the available data is obtained. The analysis indicates that the recent data from the BABAR collaboration on pion and eta transition form factor can be well reproduced, if a small contribution of higher twist is added to the dominant twist-two contribution at the matching scale Q(0)(2).

Abstract: The correct description of Double Parton Scattering (DPS), which represents a background in several channels for the search of new Physics at the LHC, requires the knowledge of double parton distribution functions (dPDFs). These quantities represent also a novel tool for the study of the three-dimensional nucleon structure, complementary to the possibilities offered by electromagnetic probes. In this paper we analyze dPDFs using Poincare covariant predictions obtained by using a Light-Front constituent quark model proposed in a recent paper, and QCD evolution. We study to what extent factorized expressions for dPDFs, which neglect, at least in part, two-parton correlations, can be used. We show that they fail in reproducing the calculated dPDFs, in particular in the valence region. Actually measurable processes at existing facilities occur at low longitudinal momenta of the interacting partons; to have contact with these processes we have analyzed correlations between pairs of partons of different kind, finding that, in some cases, they are strongly suppressed at low longitudinal momenta, while for other distributions they can be sizeable. For example, the effect of gluon-gluon correlations can be as large as 20 %. We have shown that these behaviors can be understood in terms of a delicate interference of non-perturbative correlations, generated by the dynamics of the model, and perturbative ones, generated by the model independent evolution procedure. Our analysis shows that at LHC kinematics two-parton correlations can be relevant in DPS, and therefore we address the possibility to study them experimentally.