Higher-energy hadronic exchanges in meson gravitational form factors

Investigate the contributions of higher-energy hadronic exchanges, including tensor-meson exchange, to meson gravitational form factors at momentum transfers beyond the low-energy region below approximately 1 GeV, including their effects on the D-form factor and other gravitational form factors such as the A-form factor.

Background

The analysis is restricted to momentum transfers and energies where lightest scalar-meson dominance is expected to provide a useful description, approximately below 1 GeV. At higher momentum transfer, additional hadronic exchanges—specifically including tensor-meson exchange—may become relevant and could modify both the D-form factor and other gravitational form factors. The authors explicitly leave a systematic study of these higher-energy contributions for future work.

References

In this study, we focused on the low-energy region of QCD below about $1~{\rm GeV}$, where the lightest scalar-meson dominance picture is expected to be relevant. At higher momentum transfer, other hadronic exchanges, such as tensor-meson exchange, may also become important. Such contributions may affect not only the D-form factor but also other gravitational form factors, including the A-form factor. We leave the study of these higher-energy contributions for future work.

— Meson gravitational D-form factors and symmetry breaking in low-energy QCD  (2608.30434 - Kawaguchi et al., 31 Aug 2026) in Summary section