Nonforward parton distributions

Applications of perturbative QCD to deeply virtual Compton scattering and hard exclusive electroproduction processes require a generalization of usual parton distributions for the cass when long-distance information is accumulated in nonforward matrix elements [p'\O(0,z)\p] of quark and gluon light-cone operators. We describe two types of nonperturbative functions parametrizing such matrix elements: double distributions F(x,y;t) and nonforward distribution functions F-zeta(X:t), discuss their spectral properties, evolution equations which they satisfy, basic uses and general aspects of factorization for hard exclusive processes.