Models of the proton spin structure

A phenomenological model of spin sharing by the constituents of a proton is constructed, based on the recent EMC measurement of the spin dependent structure function and knowledge of the unpolarized parton densities.     

Precision Rosenbluth measurement of the proton elastic form factors

We report the results of a new Rosenbluth measurement of the proton electromagnetic form factors at Q2 values of 2.64, 3.20, and 4.10 GeV2. Cross sections were determined by detecting the recoiling proton, in contrast to previous measurements which detected the scattered electron. Cross sections were determined to 3%, with relative uncertainties below 1%. The ratio mu(p)G(E)/G(M) was determined to 4%-8% and showed mu(p)G(E)/G(M) approximately 1. These results are consistent with, and much more precise than, previous Rosenbluth extractions. They are inconsistent with recent polarization transfer measurements of similar precision, implying a systematic difference between the techniques.     

Hadronic colliders as probes of the proton spin structure

We perform a systematic analysis of different processes with high energy polarized proton beams: jets, direct photon, lepton pairs (Drell-Yan) andWZ production. Different sets of polarized partonic densities are used that fit EMC and SLAC polarized deep inelastic scattering data with variable amount of quark and gluon components of the proton spin. The case of the future Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) used as a polarized collider at a maximum energy of \(\sqrt s = 500\) GeV is analyzed in detail.     

Probing proton spin structure through hadronic reactions

Inclusive and semi-inclusive photon producing polarized proton reactions have been employed to probe the spin structure of the proton. Combinations of cross-sections are suggested which may measure valence quarks polarization and gluon polarization in the proton separately. The general formalism is used to predict numerical results using a model of spin structure based on Altarelli-Parisi equations.     

Leading chiral contributions to the spin structure of the proton

The leading chiral contributions to the quark and gluon components of the proton spin are calculated using heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory. Similar calculations are done for the moments of the generalized parton distributions relevant to the quark and gluon angular momentum densities. These results provide useful insight into the role of pions in the spin structure of the nucleon and can serve as a guide for extrapolating lattice QCD calculations at large quark masses to the chiral limit.     

A measurement of the proton structure function F2(x,Q2)

A measurement of the proton structure function F₂(x, Q²) is reported for momentum transfers squared Q² between 4.5 GeV² and 1600 GeV² and for Bjorken x between 1.8 × 10⁻¹⁴ and 0.13 using data collected by the HERA experiment H1 in 1993. It is observed that F₂ increases significantly with decreasing x, confirming our previous measurement made with one tenth of the data available in this analysis. The Q² dependence is approximately logarithmic over the full kinematic range covered. The subsample of deep inelastic events with a large pseudo-rapidity gap in the hadronic energy flow close to the proton remnant is used to measure the “diffractive” contribution to F₂.     

Magnetic moments and the proton structure function

The EMC collaboration have reported a measurement of the proton structure function which has been interpreted to mean that the spin of the proton is not predominantly that of the quarks (=u+d+s=0.13±0.19). We show that the magnetic moments of the baryons are independent of this measurement and are given (within 10–20%) for a range of including the valence model value =1. The magnetic moments of the quarks can only be fixed if the quantity is determined very accurately.     

Phenomenology of the proton spin

We analyze the various inputs that go into computing the recently measured first moment of the proton spin structure functiong ₁ ^p (x). The basic inputs are the various valence and sea quark polarisations and the gluonic contribution coming through axial anomaly. We show that the quark model predictions for valence quark polarisations, suitably modified to accommodate Bjorken sum rule, are consistent with measured value of moment of the spin structure function.     

Quark-hadron duality of nucleon spin structure function

Bloom-Gilman quark-hadron duality of nuclear spin structure function is studied by comparing the integral of g₁ from perturbative QCD prediction in the scaling region to the moment of g₁ in the resonance region. The spin structure function in the resonance region is estimated by the parametrization forms of non-resonance background and of resonance contributions. The uncertainties of our calculations due to those parametrization forms are discussed. Moreover, the effect of the (1232)-resonance in the first resonance region and the role of the resonances in the second resonance region are explicitly shown. Elastic peak contribution to the duality is also analyzed.     

Precision measurement of the neutron spin asymmetryA(n)(1) and spin-flavor decomposition in the valence quark region

We have measured the neutron spin asymmetry A(n)(1) with high precision at three kinematics in the deep inelastic region at x=0.33, 0.47, and 0.60, and Q(2)=2.7, 3.5, and 4.8 (GeV/c)(2), respectively. Our results unambiguously show, for the first time, that A(n)(1) crosses zero around x=0.47 and becomes significantly positive at x=0.60. Combined with the world proton data, polarized quark distributions were extracted. Our results, in general, agree with relativistic constituent quark models and with perturbative quantum chromodynamics (PQCD) analyses based on the earlier data. However they deviate from PQCD predictions based on hadron helicity conservation.