We review the current status of experimental and theoretical understanding of the axial nucleon structure at low and moderate energies. Topics considered include (quasi)elastic (anti)neutrino-nucleon scattering, charged pion electroproduction off nucleons and ordinary as well as radiative muon capture on the proton.
We analyze the low-$Q^2$ behavior of the axial form factor $G_A(Q^2)$, the induced pseudoscalar form factor $G_P(Q^2)$, and the axial nucleon-to-$Delta$ transition form factors $C^A_5(Q^2)$ and $C^A_6(Q^2)$. Building on the results of chiral perturbation theory, we first discuss $G_A(Q^2)$ in a chiral effective-Lagrangian model including the $a_1$ meson and determine the relevant coupling parameters from a fit to experimental data. With this information, the form factor $G_P(Q^2)$ can be predicted. For the determination of the transition form factor $C^A_5(Q^2)$ we make use of an SU(6) spin-flavor quark-model relation to fix two coupling constants such that only one free parameter is left. Finally, the transition form factor $C^A_6(Q^2)$ can be predicted in terms of $G_P(Q^2)$, the mean-square axial radius $langle r^2_Arangle$, and the mean-square axial nucleon-to-$Delta$ transition radius $langle r^2_{ANDelta}rangle$.
The fragmentation of a colored parton directly into a pair of colorless hadrons is a non-perturbative mechanism that offers important insights into the nucleon structure. Di-hadron fragmentation functions can be extracted from semi-inclusive electron-positron annihilation data. They also appear in observables describing the semi-inclusive production of two hadrons in deep-inelastic scattering of leptons off nucleons or in hadron-hadron collisions. When a target nucleon is transversely polarized, a specific chiral-odd di-hadron fragmentation function can be used as the analyzer of the net density of transversely polarized quarks in a transversely polarized nucleon, the so-called transversity distribution. The latter can be extracted through suitable single-spin asymmetries in the framework of collinear factorization, thus in a much simpler framework with respect to the traditional one in single-hadron fragmentation. At subleading twist, the same chiral-odd di-hadron fragmentation function provides the cleanest access to the poorly known twist-3 parton distribution $e(x)$, which is intimately related to the mechanism of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. When sensitive to details of transverse momentum dynamics of partons, the di-hadron fragmentation functions for a longitudinally polarized quark can be connected to the longitudinal jet handedness to explore possible effects due to $CP-$violation of the QCD vacuum. In this review, we outline the formalism of di-hadron fragmentation functions, we discuss different observables where they appear and we present measurements and future worldwide plans.
We study the scattering of neutrinos on polarized and unpolarized free nucleons, and also the polarization of recoil particles in these scatters. In contrast to electromagnetic processes, the parity-violating weak interaction gives rise to large spin asymmetries at leading order. Future polarization measurements could provide independent access to the proton axial structure and allow the first extraction of the pseudoscalar form factor from neutrino data without the conventional partially conserved axial current (PCAC) ansatz and assumptions about the pion-pole dominance. The pseudoscalar form factor can be accessed with precise measurements with muon (anti)neutrinos of a few hundreds $mathrm{MeV}$ of energy or with tau (anti)neutrinos. The axial form factor can be extracted from scattering measurements using accelerator neutrinos of all energies.
We review the status of our understanding of nucleon structure based on the modelling of different kinds of parton distributions. We use the concept of generalized transverse momentum dependent parton distributions and Wigner distributions, which combine the features of transverse-momentum dependent parton distributions and generalized parton distributions. We revisit various quark models which account for different aspects of these parton distributions. We then identify applications of these distributions to gain a simple interpretation of key properties of the quark and gluon dynamics in the nucleon.
We report on an update (2021) of a phenomenological model for inelastic neutrino- and electron-nucleon scattering cross sections using effective leading order parton distribution functions with a new scaling variable $xi_w$. Non-perturbative effects are well described using the $xi_w$ scaling variable in combination with multiplicative $K$ factors at low $Q^2$. The model describes all inelastic charged-leptron-nucleon scattering data (HERA/NMC/BCDMS/SLAC/JLab) ranging from very high $Q^2$ to very low $Q^2$ and down to the $Q^2=0$ photo-production region. The model has been developed to be used in analysis of neutrino oscillation experiments in the few GeV region. The 2021 update accounts for the difference between axial and vector structure function which brings it into much better agreement with neutrino-nucleon total cross section measurements. The model has been developed primarily for hadronic final state masses $W$ above 1.8 GeV. However with additional parameters the model also describe the $average$ neutrino cross sections in the resonance region down to $W$=1.4 GeV.