Timelike and spacelike deeply virtual Compton scattering at next-to-leading order

Abstract

We study timelike and spacelike virtual Compton scattering in the generalized Bjorken scaling regime at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant, in the medium energy range which will be studied intensely at JLab12 and in the COMPASS-II experiment at CERN. We show that the Born amplitudes get sizeable $O({\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{s})$ corrections and, even at moderate energies, the gluonic contributions are by no means negligible. We stress that the timelike and spacelike cases are complementary and that their difference deserves much special attention.