Scaling study of the pion electroproduction cross sections

The ¹H(e, e'π⁺)n cross section was measured for arange of four-momentum transfer up to Q²=3.91 GeV² at values of the invariant mass W above the resonance region. The Q² dependence of the longitudinal component was found to be consistent with the Q²-scaling prediction for hard exclusive processes. This suggests that the QCD factorization theorem is applicable at rather low values of Q². The transverse term falls off slower than the naive Q^-8 expectation and remains appreciable even at Q²=3.91 GeV².