Pion electromagnetic form factor and Fock state components

The pion electromagnetic form factor in the space- and time-like regions are for the first time analyzed within a light-front model, that allows one to address the fundamental issue of non-valence components of the pion and photon wave functions. Our relativistic approach is based on a microscopic vector meson dominance model for the dressed quark-photon vertex, and on a simple parametrization for the emission /absorption of a pion by a quark. The comparison with the experimental data shows a high quality agreement in the whole kinematical region explored. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.