Studies of Chiral-Odd GPDs in Hard Exclusive Pseudoscalar Meson Production

Deeply virtual exclusive electroproduction of pseudoscalar mesons in hard scattering processes provides a unique avenue to access chiral-odd GPDs. The latter enter the soft matrix elements in transverse virtual photon-proton scattering. Transverse photon polarization dominates $\pi^0$, $\eta$, and $K$ production in the multi GeV region owing to the fact that $t$-channel meson pole contribution either does not occur ($\pi^0$ and $\eta$), or is predicted to be relatively small ($K^+, K^o$). We will present ongoing studies of spin and azimuthal asymmetries in hard exclusive production of pseudoscalar mesons at Jefferson Lab, and proposed future measurements to study chiral-odd GPDs at JLab and Electron Ion Collider. Combination of measurements of cross sections, spin and azimuthal asymmetries with a longitudinally polarized beam and both unpolarized and longitudinally polarized proton targets for $\pi^o$, $\eta$ and $K^+, K^o$ electroproduction will provide a detailed test of the mechanism for pseudoscalar meson electroproduction including strangeness, and allow to perform flavor decomposition of underlying chiral-odd GPDs.