Pion parton distribution functions in the light-cone quark model and experimental constraints

In this work, we investigate the valence quark parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the pion within the light-cone quark model. The initial quark PDFs are calculated by solving the quark-quark correlation function for the pseudoscalar mesons. The initial quark PDFs have been evolved to higher energy scales through the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) evolution equations. We also find that our calculated evolved PDFs match experimental and available theoretical extraction data. For the first time, we have also predicted the F 2 structure function at next-to-leading (NLO) order accuracy. The calculated F 2 structure function has been compared with the available ZEUS and H1 experimental data at DESY-HERA over a wide range of energy scales. Additionally, we display the forward pion production cross-section for the Drell-Yan process caused by pions using the pion PDFs that were calculated and the target nucleon PDFs from the LHAPDF nucleus datasets. The evolved F 2 structure function of the pion has been studied at the upcoming electron-ion collider energy kinematics. Overall, it was observed that the quark PDFs of pions computed using the light-cone quark model are consistent with the experimental results.