Towards High-Precision Parton Distributions From Lattice QCD via Distillation

The pseudo-distribution formalism is one such lattice methodology capable of extracting light-cone distributions from matrix elements of suitably constructed Euclidean non-local operators of a spacelike extent. Leveraging the distillation spatial smearing program, we extract the unpolarized isovector valence quark PDF of the nucleon via a direct 1-loop matching of the Ioffe-time pseudo-distribution and model PDFs. We benchmark the efficacy and systematics inherent to this choice by also extracting the PDF from the matched light-cone Ioffe-time distribution. The tempering of excited-states and improved spatial sampling afforded by distillation lead to higher-quality Ioffe-time distributions relative to the literature, and exhibit DGLAP evolution in the short-distance regime. We explore the role of higher-twist effects by extending the spacelike Wilson lines present in our calculation to regimes wherein polynomial-$z^2$ corrections are expected to be large. Comparisons are made between PDFs extracted from our analysis and those from phenomenological determinations.