We study angular momentum of the electron stored in its electric and magnetic fields. We use for this purpose quantum electrodynamics in the covariant gauge. We show that a finite one-loop result for such angular momentum can be obtained without invoking any renormalization procedure. We compare it to the classical estimation relying on a short-distance cutoff.
The angular momentum of fermion pairs generated by the Schwinger effect is studied in homogeneous (chromo)electromagnetic fields, mimicking the early stages of a heavy-ion collision. It is demonstrated that the angular momentum density of produced pairs is proportional to that of the background fields. This is argued both heuristically in a virtual breaking condensate model by evaluating Wong's equations, and out-of-equilibrium to one-loop using the in-in formalism.
Covariant quantization of the electromagnetic field imposes the so-called gauge-fixing modification on the Lagrangian density. As a result of that, the total angular momentum operator receives at least one gauge-fixing-originated contribution, whose presence causes some confusion in the literature. The goal of this work is to discuss in detail why such a contribution, having no classical interpretation, is actually indispensable. For this purpose, we divide canonical and Belinfante-Rosenfeld total angular momentum operators into different components and study their commutation relations, their…
The expression for the total angular momentum carried by a laser optical vortex beam, splits, in the paraxial approximation, into two terms which seem to represent orbital and spin angular momentum respectively. There are, however, two very different competing versions of the formula for the spin angular momentum, one based on the use of the Poynting vector, as in classical electrodynamics, the other related to the canonical expression for the angular momentum which occurs in Quantum Electrodynamic. I analyze the possibility that a sufficiently sensitive optical measurement could decide which …
We address the problem of angular momentum decomposition of a free photon. We propose a natural and physical scheme for separating the total angular momentum operator for a free photon into an orbital part and a spin part with the hope that it solves this long-standing problem and it could provide a natural basis for further study of the problem of angular momentum decomposition of a gauge field system.
We make use of a simple scalar diquark model to study the potential transverse momentum and potential angular momentum, defined as the difference between the Jaffe-Manohar and Ji notions of transverse momentum and orbital angular momentum, respectively. A non-vanishing potential angular momentum has been previously found in lattice calculations and is believed to appear due to the effects of initial/final state interactions between the spectator system and the struck quark in high energy scattering processes. Such re-scattering phenomena are similar in nature to those who are responsible for g…
We clarify the relation between canonical and metric energy-momentum tensors. In particular, we show that a natural definition arises from Noether's Theorem which directly leads to a symmetric and gauge invariant tensor for electromagnetic field theories on an arbitrary space-time of any dimension.
A possible resolution to the question of where the nucleon gets some portion of its internal angular momentum, not carried by the valence quarks, is given in terms of the electromagnetic field angular momentum of the nucleon. This field angular momentum is similiar in origin to that of the Thomson dipole (an electric charge and a magnetic monopole), but arises from the interaction of the quark electric charges and magnetic dipoles. Rough, order of magnitude calculations show that such a field angular momentum could provide some of the nucleon's spin. Under certain assumptions QCD should also e…
We have calculated the Orbital Angular Momentum of quarks and gluons in the nucleon. The calculations are carried out in the next to leading order utilizing the so-called valon model. It is found that the average quark orbital angular momentum is positive, but small, and the average gluon orbital angular momentum is negative and large. We also report on some regularities about the total angular momentum of the quarks and the gluon, as well as on the orbital angular momentum of the separate partons. We have also provided partonic angular momentum, $L^{q,g}$ as a function of $Q^2$.
We calculate the orbital angular momentum of the `quark' in the scalar diquark model as well as that of the electron in QED (to order $α$). We compare the orbital angular momentum obtained from the Jaffe-Manohar decomposition to that obtained from the Ji relation and estimate the importance of the vector potential in the definition of orbital angular momentum.
We discuss the parton branching (PB) evolution equation for transverse momentum dependent (TMD) parton distribution functions (PDFs), especially we concentrate on the angular ordering constrain and its effect on the TMD distributions. We discuss application of the PB TMDs to precise prediction of Drell-Yan transverse momentum spectrum at LHC, stressing the role of angular ordering in the low transverse momentum region. We compare the PB implementation of the angular ordering condition with the Kimber-Martin-Ryskin-Watt (KMRW), both at the analytical and numerical level.
It is pointed out that the previous energy-momentum tensors of Minkowski and Abraham for the electromagnetic field in continuous media are based on a covariant formulation which does not reflect a symmetry inherent to the system. Instead, taking into account the intrinsic invariance under Lorentz transformations involving the reduced speed of light in such a medium, a compact and fully consistent theory can be formulated without the old problems.
We discuss the orbital angular momentum of partons inside a longitudinally polarized proton in the recently proposed framework of spin decomposition. The quark orbital angular momentum defined by Ji can be decomposed into the `canonical' and the `potential' angular momentum parts, both of which are represented as the matrix element of a manifestly gauge invariant operator.
We compare the orbital angular momentum of the 'quark' in the scalar diquark model as well as that of the electron in QED (to order α) obtained from the Jaffe-Manohar de- composition to that obtained from the Ji relation. We estimate the importance of the vector potential in the definition of orbital angular momentum.
We introduce gauge-invariant quark and gluon angular momentum distributions after making a generalization of the angular momentum density operators. From the quark angular momentum distribution, we define the gauge-invariant and leading-twist quark {\it orbital} angular momentum distribution $L_q(x)$. The latter can be extracted from data on the polarized and unpolarized quark distributions and the off-forward distribution $E(x)$ in the forward limit. We comment upon the evolution equations obeyed by this as well as other orbital distributions considered in the literature.
We derive the effective angular momentum operator to $1/m^2$ and one-loop order in non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics (NRQED). In both dimensional and three-momentum-cutoff regularization schemes, we obtain the non-relativistic expansion for the spin and orbital angular momentum operators of the electron and photon, respectively. Our result is useful in precision calculations of the angular momentum properties for non-relativistic QED bound states, such as atom systems.
We analyze the proton electromagnetic form factor ratio $R(Q^{2})=QF_2(Q^{2})/F_1(Q^{2})$ as a function of momentum transfer $Q^{2}$ within perturbative QCD. We find that the prediction for $R(Q^{2})$ at large momentum transfer $Q$ depends on the exclusive quark wave functions, which are unknown. For a wide range of wave functions we find that $ QF_2/F_1 \sim\ const$ at large momentum transfer, in agreement with recent JLAB data.
We study angular momentum in non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics (NRQED). We construct the effective total angular momentum operator by applying Noether's theorem to the NRQED lagrangian. We calculate the NRQED matching for the individual components of the QED angular momentum up to one loop. We illustrate an application of our results by the first calculation of the angular momentum of the ground state hydrogen atom carried in radiative photons, $α_{\rm em}^3/18π$, which might be measurable in future atomic experiments.
The evolution of orbital angular momentum distributions within the radiative parton model is studied. We use different scenarios for the helicity weighted parton distributions and consider a broad range of input distributions for orbital angular momentum. In all cases we are lead to the conclusion that the absolute value of the average angular momentum per parton peaks at relatively large $x\approx 0.1$ for perturbatively accessible scales. Furthermore, in all scenarios considered here the average orbital angular momentum per parton is several times larger for gluons than for quarks which favo…
Over recent years we have witnessed tremendous progresses in our understanding on the angular momentum decomposition. In the context of the proton spin problem in high energy processes the angular momentum decomposition by Jaffe and Manohar, which is based on the canonical definition, and the alternative by Ji, which is based on the Belinfante improved one, have been revisited under light shed by Chen et al. leading to seminal works by Hatta, Wakamatsu, Leader, etc. In chiral physics as exemplified by the chiral vortical effect and applications to the relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions, s…
Using the MIT bag model, we study the contribution from the gluon vector potential due to the spectators to the orbital angular momentum of a quark in the bag model. For $α_s = {\cal O}(1)$, this spectator contribution to the quark orbital angular momentum in the gauge-covariant Ji decomposition is of the same order as the non gauge-covariant quark orbital angular momentum and its magnitude is larger for $d$ than for $u$ quarks and negative for both.
This two-paper series addresses and fixes the long-standing gauge invariance problem of angular momentum in gauge theories. This QED part reveals: 1) The spin and orbital angular momenta of electrons and photons can all be consistently defined gauge invariantly. 2) These gauge-invariant quantities can be conveniently computed via the canonical, gauge-dependent operators (e.g, $ψ^\dagger \vec x \times\frac 1i \vec \nabla ψ$) in the Coulomb gauge, which is in fact what people (unconsciously) do in atomic physics. 3) The renowned formula $\vec x\times(\vec E\times\vec B)$ is a wrong density for t…
Superfluid vortices are quantum excitations carrying quantized amount of orbital angular momentum in a phase where global symmetry is spontaneously broken. We address a question of whether magnetic vortices in superconductors with dynamical gauge fields can carry nonzero orbital angular momentum or not. We discuss the angular momentum conservation in several distinct classes of examples from crossdisciplinary fields of physics across condensed matter, dense nuclear systems, and cosmology. The angular momentum carried by gauge field configurations around the magnetic vortex plays a crucial role…
The pion electromagnetic form factor is calculated at lower and higher momentum transfer in order to explore constituent quark models and the differences among those models. In particular, the light-front constituent quark model is utilized here to calculate the pion electromagnetic form factor at lower and higher energies. The matrix elements of the electromagnetic current, are calculated with both "plus" and "minus" components of the electromagnetic current in the light-front. Further, the electromagnetic form factor is compared with other models in the literature and experimental data.
We compute the effect of rigid rotation on the non-relativistic bound states. The energy levels of the bound states increase with the angular velocity of rotation until at certain value of the angular velocity they are completely pushed out into the continuum which corresponds to dissociation of the bound states. When the angular velocity exceeds the critical value at which the ground state disappears into the continuum, no bound state is possible. This effect should have important consequences for the phenomenology of the quark-gluon plasma. One of the ways to study it experimentally is to ob…
A new picture is given of generalized parton distributions probed in experiments in which the probe scale $Q^{2}$ and the momentum transfer $\DD^{2}$ are well separated. Application of this picture to the $Q^{2}$ dependence of the form factors $F_{1}, F_{2}$ shows that gauge invariant quark orbital angular momentum can be measured and indeed {\it localized} in the transverse profile of the proton. A previous prediction that $\sqrt{Q^{2}}F_{2}(Q^{2})/F_{1}(Q^{2}) \sim const. $ is generalized to GPD language. This prediction appears to have been confirmed by recent CEBAF data.
Analysis of the measured value of the integrated \bar{d}-\bar{u} asymmetry (Ifas = 0.147+-0.027) in the nucleon show it to arise from nucleon fluctuations into baryon plus pion. Requiring angular momentum conservation in these fluctuations shows the associated orbital angular momentum is equal to the value of the flavor asymmetry.
We show that, when boosted to the infinite momentum frame, the quark and gluon orbital angular momentum operators defined in the nucleon spin sum rule of X. S. Chen et al. are the same as those derived from generalized transverse momentum distributions. This completes the connection between the infinite momentum limit of each term in that sum rule and experimentally measurable observables. We also show that these orbital angular momentum operators can be defined locally, and discuss the strategies of calculating them in lattice QCD.
We study the evolution of the angular momentum of the heavy quarks in the very early stage of high energy nuclear collisions, in which the background is made of evolving Glasma fields. Given the novelty of the problem, we limit ourselves to the use of toy heavy quarks with a large, unphysical mass, in order to implement the kinetic equations for the angular momentum in the non-relativistic limit. We find that as a consequence of the anisotropy of the background fields, angular momentum fluctuations are also anisotropic: we understand this in simple terms relating the fluctuations of the angula…
The proton spin crisis remains an unsolved problem in physics. In this paper we find that due to the confinement of partons inside the hadron the angular momentum sum rule in QCD is violated. Hence we find that the non-vanishing angular momentum flux contribution of the partons in QCD should be added to the spin and angular momentum of the partons to solve the proton spin crisis.
We investigate the utility of partially twisted boundary conditions in lattice calculations of meson observables. For dynamical simulations, we show that the pion dispersion relation is modified by volume effects. In the isospin limit, we demonstrate that the pion electromagnetic form factor can be computed on the lattice at continuous values of the momentum transfer. Furthermore, the finite volume effects are under theoretical control for extraction of the pion charge radius.
We study the connection between the quark orbital angular momentum and the pretzelosity transverse-momentum dependent parton distribution function. We discuss the origin of this relation in quark models, identifying as key ingredient for its validity the assumption of spherical symmetry for the nucleon in its rest frame. Finally we show that the individual quark contributions to the orbital angular momentum obtained from this relation can not be interpreted as the intrinsic contributions, but include the contribution from the transverse centre of momentum which cancels out only in the total or…