A New Study of the Polarized Parton Densities in the Nucleon

We present a new next-to-leading order QCD analysis of the world data on inclusive polarized deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering adding to the old set of data the final SMC results, the HERMES proton and very recent SLAC/E155 deuteron data. We find an excellent fit to the data and present results for the polarized parton densities in different factorization schemes. These results are in a good agreement with what follows from the theory. We have also found that the main effect of the newly incorporated data is a better determination of the polarized gluon density.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 5 ps figures Presented at the 7th International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and QCD, Zeuthen, Germany, April 19-23, 199

Some Remarks on Methods of QCD Analysis of Polarized DIS Data

The results on polarized parton densities (PDFs) obtained using different methods of QCD analysis of the present polarized DIS data are discussed. Their dependence on the method used in the analysis, accounting or not for the kinematic and dynamic 1/Q^2 corrections to spin structure function g_1, is demonstrated. It is pointed out that the precise data in the preasymptotic region require a more careful matching of the QCD predictions to the data in this region in order to determine the polarized PDFs correctly.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

The angular momentum controversy: What's it all about and does it matter?

The general question, crucial to an understanding of the internal structure of the nucleon, of how to split the total angular momentum of a photon or gluon into spin and orbital contributions is one of the most important and interesting challenges faced by gauge theories like Quantum Electrodynamics and Quantum Chromodynamics. This is particularly challenging since all QED textbooks state that such an splitting cannot be done for a photon (and a fortiori for a gluon) in a gauge-invariant way, yet experimentalists around the world are engaged in measuring what they believe is the gluon spin! This question has been a subject of intense debate and controversy, ever since, in 2008, it was claimed that such a gauge-invariant split was, in fact, possible. We explain in what sense this claim is true and how it turns out that one of the main problems is that such a decomposition is not unique and therefore raises the question of what is the most natural or physical choice. The essential requirement of measurability does not solve the ambiguities and leads us to the conclusion that the choice of a particular decomposition is essentially a matter of taste and convenience. In this review, we provide a pedagogical introduction to the question of angular momentum decomposition in a gauge theory, present the main relevant decompositions and discuss in detail several aspects of the controversies regarding the question of gauge invariance, frame dependence, uniqueness and measurability. We stress the physical implications of the recent developments and collect into a separate section all the sum rules and relations which we think experimentally relevant. We hope that such a review will make the matter amenable to a broader community and will help to clarify the present situation.Comment: 96 pages, 11 figures, 5 tables, review prepared for Physics Report

Parton intrinsic motion: suppression of the Collins mechanism for transverse single spin asymmetries in p(transv. polarised) p --> pion + X

We consider a general formalism to compute inclusive polarised and unpolarised cross sections within pQCD and the factorisation scheme, taking into account parton intrinsic motion in distribution and fragmentation functions, as well as in the elementary dynamics. Surprisingly, the intrinsic partonic motion, with all the correct azimuthal angular dependences, produces a strong suppression of the transverse single spin asymmetry arising from the Collins mechanism. As a consequence, and in contradiction with earlier claims, the Collins mechanism is unable to explain the large asymmetries found in p(transv. polarised) p --> pion + X at moderate to large Feynman x_F. The Sivers effect is not suppressed.Comment: LaTeX, 21+1 pages, 1 ps figur

Tests of the extraction of the Sivers, Boer-Mulders and transversity distributions in SIDIS reactions

A major experimental program is presently underway worldwide to determine the fundamental non-perturbative functions, the Sivers, Boer-Mulders and transversity distributions, which are vital for an understanding of the internal structure of the nucleon. However, at present, many simplifying assumptions are used in extracting these functions from the data. We demonstrate that if the binning of the data in Q^2 is small enough so that Q^2-evolution can be neglected inside a bin, then one can obtain stringent tests of these assumptions. Failure to satisfy these tests implies that the presently extracted non-perturbative functions are unreliable. To this end we consider the measurement of the Sivers, Boer-Mulders and transversity difference asymmetries for hadrons with opposite charges in SIDIS reactions with unpolarized and transversely polarized deuteron and proton targets: l+N\to l'+h+X, h=\pi^\pm ,K^\pm ,h^\pm. Utilizing only charge and isospin invariance, and applying the above mentioned simplifying assumptions we obtain several testable relations amongst the measured asymmetries. If these tests are satisfied then the measured asymmetries determine two different combinations of the valence-quark transverse momentum dependent distributions, which can be determined separately without any contributions from the strange and other sea-quarks.Comment: 3 more references and 3 more Sections, where the asymmetries on proton target are considered are added, there are some changes in the Abstract and in the Introduction as well; 22 pages, Latex fil

Parton distribution functions of proton in a light-front quark-diquark model

We present the parton distribution functions (PDFs) for un- polarised, longitudinally polarized and transversely polarized quarks in a proton using the light-front quark diquark model. We also present the scale evolution of PDFs and calculate axial charge and tecsor charge for $u$ and $d$ quarks at a scale of experimental findings.Comment: XXII DAE-BRNS High Energy Physics Symposium, December 12-16, 2016, University of Delhi, India; 4 pages, 1 figur