A detailed QCD analysis of twist-3 effects in DVCS observables

Abstract

In this paper I present a detailed QCD analysis of twist-3 effects in the Wandzura-Wilczek (WW) approximation in deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) observables for various kinematical settings, representing the HERA, HERMES, CLAS and the planned EIC (electron-ion-collider) experiments. I find that the twist-3 effects in the WW approximation are almost always negligible at collider energies but can be large for low Q^2 and smaller x_bj in observables for the lower energy, fixed target experiments directly sensitive to the real part of DVCS amplitudes like the charge asymmetry (CA). Conclusions are then drawn about the reliability of extracting twist-2 generalized parton distributions (GPDs) from experimental data and a first, phenomenological, parameterization of the LO and NLO twist-2 GPD $H$, describing all the currently available DVCS data within the experimental errors is given.

18 pages, 21 figures, uses Revtex4, final version to be published in PRD, minor revisions due to referee suggestions