Tensor Form Factors and Transverse Spin Structures of the Nucleon

We briefly review recent investigations on the transverse spin structure of the nucleon, based on the chiral quark-soliton model. We discuss the results of the tensor and anomalous tensor magnetic form factors and the corresponding transverse quark spin densities inside a nucleon. The results are compared with those of the recent lattice calculation. While their qualitative features are similar to the lattice ones, there are some discrepancies in the momentum dependence of the form factors and accordingly in the strengths of the transverse spin densities.     

Transverse spin structure of hadrons from lattice QCD

This paper presents recent lattice QCD calculations of transverse spin densities of quarks in hadrons.² Based on our simulation results for the tensor generalized form factors, we find substantial correlations between spin and coordinate degrees of freedom in the nucleon and the pion. They lead to strongly distorted transverse spin densities of quarks in the nucleon and a surprisingly non-trivial transverse spin structure of the pion. Following recent arguments by Burkardt [M. Burkardt, Phys. Rev. D 72 (2005) 094020], our results imply that the Boer-Mulders function , describing correlations of the transverse spin and intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks, is large and negative for up-quarks in the proton and the π⁺. This supports the recent hypothesis that all Boer-Mulders functions are alike [arXiv:0705.1573], and also provides additional motivation for future studies of azimuthal asymmetries in πp Drell-Yan production at, e.g., COMPASS.     

Transversity of quarks in a nucleon

The transversity distribution of quarks in a nucleon is one of the three fundamental distributions, that characterize nucleon's properties in hard scattering processes at leading twist (twist 2). It measures the distribution of quark transverse spin in a nucleon polarized transverse to its (infinite) momentum. It is a chiral-odd twist-two distribution function — gluons do not couple to it. Quarks in a nucleon/hadron are relativistically bound and transversity is a measure of the relativistic nature of bound quarks in a nucleon. In this work, we review some important aspects of this less familiar distribution function which has not been measured experimentally so far.     

Spin densities in the transverse plane and generalized transversity distributions

We show how generalized quark distributions in the nucleon describe the density of polarized quarks in the impact parameter plane, both for longitudinal and transverse polarization of the quark and the nucleon. This density representation entails positivity bounds including chiral-odd distributions, which tighten the known bounds in the chiral-even sector. Using the quark equations of motion, we derive relations between the moments of chiral-odd generalized parton distributions of twist two and twist three. We exhibit the analogy between polarized quark distributions in impact parameter space and transverse momentum dependent distribution functions.Received: 25 April 2005, Published online: 27 July 2005     

Spin structure of the pion

We present the first calculation of the transverse spin structure of the pion in lattice QCD. Our simulations are based on two flavors of nonperturbatively improved Wilson fermions, with pion masses as low as 400 MeV in volumes up to (2.1 fm)(3) and lattice spacings below 0.1 fm. We find a characteristic asymmetry in the spatial distribution of transversely polarized quarks. This asymmetry is very similar in magnitude to the analogous asymmetry we previously obtained for quarks in the nucleon. Our results support the hypothesis that all Boer-Mulders functions are alike.     

Recent results from the HERMES experiment

Results are presented from the Hermes experiment which uses semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton scattering to study the flavor structure of the nucleon. Data have been accumulated for pion and kaon double spin asymmetries, single-spin azimuthal asymmetries for meson electroproduction, deep virtual Compton scattering (DVCS), and meson multiplicities. These results provide information on the properties of the strange sea in the proton, constraints on transverse momentum dependent quark parton distributions, and demonstrate the promise of DVCS for isolating the total angular momentum carried by the quarks in the proton.     

Unpolarized azimuthal asymmetries in SIDIS at COMPASS

The study of the spin structure of the nucleon and of the effects due to the quarks transverse momentum are part of the scientific program of COMPASS, a fixed target experiment at the CERN SPS. The azimuthal modulations which appear in the cross-section of SIDIS off unpolarised targets give insight on the intrinsic momentum structure of the nucleon and on the possible correlation between transverse spin and transverse momentum of the quarks. We present the results for the amplitudes of the cos(?), cos(2?), and sin(?) modulatuions (where ? is the azimuthal hadron angle in the gamma-nucleon system) obtained from the COMPASS data collected with a 160 GeV/c positive muon beam impinging on a deuteron target. The amplitudes are measured for both positive and negative hadrons, and the results on the dependence of the relevant kinematical variables obtained after a multi dimensional analysis are also presented.     

Quark Orbital Angular Momentum

Generalized parton distributions provide information on the distribution of quarks in impact parameter space. For transversely polarized nucleons, these impact parameter distributions are transversely distorted and this deviation from axial symmetry leads on average to a net transverse force from the spectators on the active quark in a DIS experiment. This force when acting along the whole trajectory of the active quark leads to transverse single-spin asymmetries. For a longitudinally polarized nucleon target, the transverse force implies a torque acting on the quark orbital angular momentum (OAM). The resulting change in OAM as the quark leaves the target equals the difference between the Jaffe–Manohar and Ji OAMs.     

Spin-Dependent Forces and Current Quark Masses

The J = (3/2) , J = 1/2 Nucleon mass difference shows the quark energies can be spin dependent. It is natural to expect that the quark wave functions also depend on spin. A spin-dependent quark force is fitted to the proton and neutron magnetic moments, axial charge, and spin content using a (1/2⁺)³ configuration for the quarks and assuming only zero mass u and d quarks are in the nucleon. In the octet, such spin-dependent forces lead to different wave functions for quarks with spin parallel or antiparallel to the nucleon spin. The eigen-energy of this potential is 0.15 GeV higher for quark spin parallel than for the quark spin antiparallel to the proton spin. This potential predicts a single quark energy of 0.37 GeV for mass-less quarks in the Delta. Assuming the quark forces are flavor independent, this potential predicts magnetic moments of a bound strange quark to be very close to those determined empirically from the octet magnetic moments.     

Diquark correlations in the nucleon

We investigate the structure of the nucleon and the Δ resonance employing a constituent chiral quark model. We propose a variational approach which allows the nucleon to have a [21] flavor-spin symmetry as well as the usual [3] symmetry. This means one gives also up the requirement that the spatial wave function must be symmetric [3]. One then has also to admix the [21] spatial symmetry for a total antisymmetrization and thus one allows quark-diquark correlations, where two quarks are more closely bound than the other two possible pairs. It is found that a quark pair with isospin T = 0 and spin S = 0 in the nucleon becomes spatially very close compared with other pairs in order to gain a strong attraction due to the pion exchange in the chiral quark model, which implies a diquark correlation in the nucleon. We also calculate the proton and neutron charge square radii.     

On Gravitational Form Factors and Transverse Spin Sum Rule

Using the light front wave functions of the scalar quark–diquark model for nucleon predicted by the soft-wall AdS/QCD, we calculate the flavor dependent gravitational form factors. We evaluate the matrix element of Pauli–Lubanski operator in this model and show that the intrinsic spin sum rule involves the higher twist form factor \({\bar{C}}\). The longitudinal momentum densities in the transverse impact parameter space are also discussed for both unpolarized and transversely polarized nucleons.     

Transversity decomposition of quark angular momentum

We express the correlation between quark transversity and (total) quark angular momentum in terms of the second moment of chirally odd generalized parton distributions. The resulting relation allows to determine how much quarks of a given transversity contribute to the total angular momentum of the nucleon.     

Helicity-dependent generalized parton distributions for nonzero skewness

We investigate the helicity-dependent generalized parton distributions (GPDs) in momentum as well as transverse position (impact) spaces for the u and d quarks in a proton when the momentum transfer in both the transverse and the longitudinal directions are nonzero. The GPDs are evaluated using the light-front wave functions of a quark–diquark model for nucleon where the wave functions are constructed by the soft-wall AdS/QCD correspondence. We also express the GPDs in the boost-invariant longitudinal position space.     

Modification of the spectra of correlated charm-anticharm quark pairs in the quark-gluon plasma

Heavy quarks play an important role in probing the properties of strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma(QGP)created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions.We study the interactions of single heavy(charm)quarks and correlated charm and anticharm(ccˉ)quark pairs with the medium constituents of QGP by performing fireball+Langevin simulations of the pertinent Brownian motion with elastic collisions.Besides studying the traditional observables,the nuclear modification factor and the elliptic flow of single heavy quarks in QGP for different thermal relaxation rates,we also study the broadening of the azimuthal correlations of charm and anticharm quark pairs in the QGP medium for different relaxation rates and transverse momenta classes.We quantified the smearing of ccˉpair azimuthal correlations with an increasing thermal relaxation rate:while the(nearly)back-to-back correlations among ccˉpairs are almost completely washed out at low transverse momentum(pT),these correlations at high pT largely survive the pair diffusion.This provides a novel observable for diagnosing the properties of QGP.     

Single-spin asymmetries in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering on a transversely polarized hydrogen target

Single-spin asymmetries for semi-inclusive electroproduction of charged pions in deep-inelastic scattering of positrons are measured for the first time with transverse target polarization. The asymmetry depends on the azimuthal angles of both the pion (phi) and the target spin axis (phi(S)) about the virtual-photon direction and relative to the lepton scattering plane. The extracted Fourier component sin((phi+phi(S))(pi)(UT) is a signal of the previously unmeasured quark transversity distribution, in conjunction with the Collins fragmentation function, also unknown. The component sin((phi-phi(S)(pi)(UT) arises from a correlation between the transverse polarization of the target nucleon and the intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks, as represented by the previously unmeasured Sivers distribution function. Evidence for both signals is observed, but the Sivers asymmetry may be affected by exclusive vector meson production.     

Problems related to gauge invariance and momentum,spin decomposition in nucleon structure study

How do the quark and gluon share the nucleon momentum? How does the nucleon spin distribute among its constituents? What means the quark and gluon momentum, spin and orbital angular momentum? These problems are analyzed and a solution is proposed based on gauge invariance principle, canonical quantization rule and Poincaré covariance.     

Quantitative study of the violation of kperpendicular factorization in hadroproduction of quarks at collider energies

We demonstrate the violation of kperpendicular factorization for quark production in high energy hadronic collisions. This violation is quantified in the color glass condensate framework and studied as a function of the quark mass, the quark transverse momentum, and the saturation scale Q(s), which is a measure of large parton densities. At x values where parton densities are large but leading twist shadowing effects are still small, violations of kperpendicularkfactorization can be significant--especially for lighter quarks. At very small x, where leading twist shadowing is large, we show that violations of kperpendicular factorization are relatively weaker.     

Light-cone divergence in twist-3 correlation functions

It is argued that the definition of the twist-3 transverse momentum dependent correlation functions must be modified if they contain light-like Wilson lines. In the framework of a simple spectator model of the nucleon we show explicitly the presence of a light-cone divergence for a specific twist-3 time-reversal odd parton density. This divergence emerges for all eight twist-3 T-odd correlators and appears also in the case of a quark target in perturbative QCD. The divergence can be removed by using non-light-like Wilson lines. Based on our results we argue that currently there exists no established factorization formula for transverse momentum dependent twist-3 observables in semi-inclusive DIS and related processes.     

Thermodynamical model for proton spin

The spin content of the proton, is studied in the thermodynamical model of a nucleon. In this study, the different ingredients and their contributions to the spin are studied. The chemical potentials of constituent quarks, spin contributions coming from valence quarks and asymmetries are calculated and compared with the available data. We find that this statistical model with number conservation of valence quarks reproduces the naive quark model prediction for the spin content of the proton.     

Is There Really a Spin Crisis?

The matrix element of quark axial vector current is shown to be different from the nonrelativistic quark spin sum for a nucleon at rest. The nucleon spin content discovered in polarized deep inelastic scattering is shown to be accommodated in a constituent quark model with 15% sea quark component mixing. The relativistic correction and sea quark pair excitation inherently related to quark axial vector current reduce the nucleon axial charge and this reduction is compensated by the relativistic quark orbital angular momentum exactly and in turn keeps the nucleon spin 1/2 untouched. Nucleon tensor charge has similar but smaller relativistic and sea quark pair excitation reduction.