The dominance of the soft pomeron in soft high energy scattering and the evolution to the deeply virtual regime, predicted by perturbation theory, allow us to reveal generalized parton distributions from H1 and ZEUS measurements of deeply virtual Compton scattering. These distributions encode a holographic image of the proton, which will be presented.

We suggest the measurement of exclusive electroproduction of lepton pairs as a tool to study interparton correlations in the nucleon via generalized parton distributions in the kinematical region where this process is light-cone dominated. We demonstrate how the single beam-spin asymmetry allows one to perform such a kind of analysis and give a number of predictions for several experimental setups. We comment on other observables which allow for a clean separation of different species of generalized parton distributions.

We evaluate the differential cross section for the electroproduction of lepton pairs off a polarized nucleon target in the generalized Bjorken region to leading power accuracy in hard momentum. We discuss the importance of this process for phenomenology of generalized parton distributions. Special attention is given to the sensitivity of physical observables, i.e., diverse asymmetries, to their dependence on scaling variables that allows us to map directly the functional two-dimensional surface of generalized parton distributions.

We consider the azimuthal angle dependence in the cross section of the hard leptoproduction of a photon on a nucleon target. We show that this dependence allows to define observables that isolate the twist-two and twist-three sectors in the deeply virtual Compton scattering amplitude. All twist-two and twist-three Compton form factors can be extracted from measurements of the charge odd part of the polarized cross section and give access to all generalized parton distributions.

Hard exclusive leptoproductions of real photons, lepton pairs and mesons are the most promising tools to unravel the three-dimensional picture of the nucleon, which cannot be deduced from conventional inclusive processes like deeply inelastic scattering.

We compute the cross section for leptoproduction of the real photon off the nucleon, which is sensitive to the deeply virtual Compton scattering amplitude with power accuracy. Our considerations go beyond the leading twist and involve the complete analysis in the twist-three approximation. We discuss consequences of the target and lepton beam polarizations for accessing the generalized parton distributions from experimental measurements of the azimuthal angular dependence of the final state photon or nucleon. We introduce several sets of asymmetries, defined as Fourier moments with respect to the azimuthal angle, which allow for a clear separation of the twist-two and -three sectors. Relying on a simple ansatz for the generalized parton distributions, we give quantitative estimates for azimuthal and spin asymmetries, discuss the uncertainties of these predictions brought in by radiative corrections, and compare them with experimental data as well as other theoretical expectations. Furthermore, we derive a general parametrization of the DVCS amplitudes in the region of small Bjorken variable.

We develop a formalism for the resummation of target mass corrections in off-forward two-photon amplitudes given by a chronological product of electromagnetic currents, arising in, e.g., deeply virtual Compton scattering. The method is based on a relation of composite operators with a definite twist to harmonic tensors, which form an irreducible representation of the Lorentz group. We give an application of the framework for the matrix elements of twist-two operators.

We give a short overview of recent developments in understanding of the deeply virtual Compton scattering on the proton target.

The generalized parton distributions are non-perturbative objects, which encode information on long distance dynamics in a number of exclusive processes. They are hybrids of conventional parton densities, distribution amplitudes and hadron form factors. We give a brief review of theoretical developments in understanding of their properties, higher order perturbative effects, power corrections, and experimental observables where they are accessible.

We study perturbative QCD corrections to deeply virtual Compton scattering on an unpolarized nucleon target in the flavor non-singlet sector to next-to-next-to-leading order accuracy, restricting ourselves to the kinematically dominant amplitude. The difference between the standard minimal subtraction and the conformal scheme, in which conformal symmetry is manifest, is studied to next-to-leading order. Beyond this order we employ conformal symmetry for the evaluation of perturbative corrections. Within a certain class of generalized parton distributions we find moderate radiative corrections.