Probing axial quark generalized parton distributions through exclusive photoproduction of a γπ± pair with a large invariant mass

A bstract Exclusive photoproduction of a γπ ± pair in the kinematics where the pair has a large invariant mass and the final nucleon has a small transverse momentum is described in the collinear factorization framework. The scattering amplitude is calculated at leading order in α s and the differential cross sections for the process are estimated in the kinematics of the JLab 12-GeV experiments. The order of magnitude of the predicted cross-sections seems sufficient for a dedicated experiment to be performed. The process turns out to be very sensitive to the axial generalized parton distribution combination H ˜ u − H ˜ d .