Nucleon tensor form factors at large Nc

We investigate nucleon tensor form factors in the large-Nc limit. In this picture, the nucleon emerges as a state of the Nc valence quarks, which were bound by pion mean fields that were created by the presence of the valence quarks self-consistently. We find that the tensor charge (gTu−d=0.99) and the anomalous tensor magnetic moment (κTu+d=7.61) are dominated by valence quarks, while the tensor quadrupole moment (QTu−d=−7.02) shows significant sea quark effects. We examine how these quantities vary as the average size of the pion mean field is changed, showing interpolation between nonrelativistic quark and Skyrme limits. We also observe that gTu−d and κTu+d depend weakly on the pion mass. In contrast, QTu−d exhibits strong enhancement near the chiral limit. The numerical results are in good agreement with available lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) data and provide predictions for unmeasured quantities. Published by the American Physical Society 2025