Small x behavior of parton distributions: a study of higher twist effects

Abstract

We review the double asymptotic scaling phenomenon for the structure functions of the deepinelastic scattering process. We present an analytical parameterization of the contributions from the twist-two operators of the Wilson operator product expansion and power suppressed terms. Higher twist corrections to F 2 at small x are studied for the case of a flat initial condition for the twist-two QCD evolution in the next-to-leading order approximation. Higher twist terms are estimated using two different approaches: one motivated by BFKL and the other motivated by the renormalon formalism. The results of the latter approach are in very good agreement with deep inelastic scattering data from HERA.