Pion Gravitational Form Factors in Holographic QCD

Abstract: We present the first calculation of the momentum-transfer dependence of the pion gravitational form factors (GFFs) within a top-down holographic QCD framework. These form factors encode essential information about the internal stress distribution of hadrons and may serve as a tool to explore the non-perturbatice dyanmics responsible for quark and gluon confinement in QCD. In particular, we evaluate the forward-limit value of the GFFs, known as the D-term, within the framework of the Sakai-Sugimoto model. Our analysis also reveals glueball dominance, wherein the pion's gravitational interaction is mediated by an infinite tower of glueball excitations.