Two-photon exchange in elastic electron-proton scattering: a QCD factorization approach

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Aug 28;103(9):092004. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.092004. Epub 2009 Aug 27.

Abstract

We estimate the two-photon exchange contribution to elastic electron-proton scattering at large momentum transfer Q(2). It is shown that the leading two-photon exchange amplitude behaves as 1/Q(4), and can be expressed in a model independent way in terms of the leading twist nucleon distribution amplitudes. Using several models for the nucleon distribution amplitudes, we provide estimates for existing data and for ongoing experiments.