Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

A recent study by Wang {\it et al.}(arXiv:2308.14871) proposed a novel connection between the nature of the parton distribution function (PDF) and the characteristics of its moments. In this study, we apply these findings to analyze the evolution of the pion valence quark PDF, garnering valuable qualitative insights. Firstly, we validate the non-negativity and continuity of the PDF across a wide range of scales, indicating the logical consistency of our chosen evolution scheme. Subsequently, we examine the unimodality of both the PDF and its transformed counterpart, the xPDF, i.e., the parton distribution function multiplied by the momentum fraction. We observe a smooth evolution of the peak position of the xPDF towards the small-x region with increasing scale, while intriguingly, the PDF undergoes a phase of bimodal competition as the energy scale evolves.