The nucleon's transversity and the photon's distribution amplitude probed in lepton pair photoproduction
Résumé
We describe a new way to access the chiral odd transversity parton distribution in the proton through the photoproduction of lepton pairs on transversely polarized target. The basic ingredient is the interference of the Bethe Heitler or Drell-Yan amplitudes with the amplitude of a process, where the photon couples to quarks through its twist-2 chiral-odd distribution amplitude. This approach permits to scan experimentally the shape of the transversity distribution in a nucleon as well as the photon distribution amplitude.