QCD analysis of near-threshold quarkonium leptoproduction at large photon virtualities

Abstract

We propose a novel approach to compute the cross section of near-threshold $J/\ensuremath{\psi}$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Upsilon}}$ production in electron-proton scattering at large photon virtualities ${Q}^{2}$ based on an operator product expansion. We show that the process can be used to extract the gluon part of the D-term gravitational form factor of the proton. At the subleading level, it is also sensitive to the trace anomaly effect of QCD.