The difference between the quark orbital angular momentum (OAM) defined in light-cone gauge (Jaffe-Manohar) compared to defined using a local manifestly gauge invariant operator (Ji) is interpreted in terms of the change in quark OAM as the quark leaves the target in a DIS experiment.
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 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.
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.
Quark spin and orbital angular momentum in the nucleon are calculated in symmetry-breaking chiral quark model. The results are compared with data and other models.
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…
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 derive an inequality for the distribution of quarks with non-zero orbital angular momentum, and thus demonstrate, in a model-independent way, that a non-vanishing anomalous magnetic moment requires both a non-zero size of the target as well as the presence of wave function components with quark orbital angular momentum L_z>0.
Definitions of orbital angular momentum based on Wigner distributions are used as a framework to discuss the connection between the Ji definition of the quark orbital angular momentum and that of Jaffe and Manohar.We find that the difference between these two definitions can be interpreted as the change in the quark orbital angular momentum as it leaves the target in a DIS experiment. The mechanism responsible for that change is similar to the mechanism that causes transverse single-spin asymmetries in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering.
We developed a new and unified scheme for describing both quark spin and orbital angular momenta in symmetry-breaking chiral quark model. The loss of quark spin in the chiral splitting processes is compensated by the gain of the orbital angular momentum carried by quarks and antiquarks. The sum of both spin and orbital angular momenta carried by quarks and antiquarks is 1/2. The analytic and numerical results for the spin and orbital angular momenta carried by quarks and antiquarks in the nucleon are given. Extension to other octet and decuplet baryons is also presented. Possible modification …
The orbital angular momentum operator expansion turns to be a powerful tool to construct the fully covariant partial wave amplitudes of hadron decay reactions and hadron photo- and electroproduction processes. In this paper we consider a useful development of the orbital angular momentum operator expansion method. We present the differential technique allowing the direct calculation of convolutions of two orbital angular momentum operators with an arbitrary number of open Lorentz indices. This differential technique greatly simplifies calculations when the reaction subject to the partial wave …
We present a recent calculation of the Wigner distributions of quarks and gluons in a perturbative model. We also present the results for the orbital angular momentum and the spin-orbit correlations.
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.
The orbital angular momentum of quarks and gluons contributes significantly to the proton spin budget and attracted a lot of attention in the recent years, both theoretically and experimentally. We summarize the various definitions of parton orbital angular momentum together with their relations with parton distributions functions. In particular, we highlight current theoretical puzzles and give some prospects.
We reply to the Comment of X. Ji [arXiv:0810.4913] on our paper [PRL 100:232002 (2008)], concerning angular momentum algebra, locality, Lorentz covariance, and measurability of our gauge-invariant description of the spin and orbital angular momentum of quarks and gluons.
We propose a new method of generating gamma rays with orbital angular momentum (OAM). Accelerated partially-stripped ions are used as an energy up-converter. Irradiating an optical laser beam with OAM on ultrarelativistic ions, they are excited to a state of large angular momentum. Gamma rays with OAM are emitted in their deexcitation process. We examine the excitation cross section and deexcitation rate.
We derive the consequences of the Myhrer-Thomas explanation of the proton spin problem for the distribution of orbital angular momentum on the valence and sea quarks. After QCD evolution these results are found to be in very good agreement with both recent lattice QCD calculations and the experimental constraints from Hermes and JLab.
A new debate has recently arisen on the subject of orbital angular momentum in QCD, in particular on its observability and on its partonic interpretation. Orbital momentum can be defined in QCD using two different decomposition schemes that yield a kinetic and a canonical definition, respectively. We argue that kinetic orbital angular momentum is intrinsically associated with twist three generalized parton distributions, and it is therefore more readily observable, while, due to parity constraints, canonical angular momentum, if defined as suggested in the literature in terms of generalized tr…
The nucleon spin problem raises experimental and theoretical questions regarding the contribution of the orbital angular momentum of the quarks to the total spin of the nucleon. In this article we examine the commutation relationships of various operators that contribute to the total angular momentum of the nucleon. We find that the sum of the orbital plus gluon field angular momentum should satisfy the angular momentum commutators, at least up to the one-loop level. This requirement on the sum of these operators imposes a nontrivial restriction on the form of the color electric and magnetic f…
Wigner distributions contain combined position and momentum space information of the quark distributions and are related to both generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (TMDs). We report on a recent model calculation of the Wigner distributions for the quark and their relation to the orbital angular momentum.
Parallel to the construction of gauge invariant spin and orbital angular momentum for QED in paper (I) of this series, we present here an analogous but non-trivial solution for QCD. Explicitly gauge invariant spin and orbital angular momentum operators of quarks and gluons are obtained. This was previously thought to be an impossible task, and opens a more promising avenue towards the understanding of the nucleon spin structure.
We suggest a method of constructing gauge invariant quark and gluon distributions that describe an abstract QCD observable and apply this method to analyze angular momentum of a hadron. In addition to the known quark and gluon polarized structure functions, we obtain gauge invariant distributions for quark and gluon orbital angular momenta, and consider some basic properties of these distributions and their moments.
The spin and orbital angular momentum carried by different quark flavors in the nucleon are calculated in the SU(3) chiral quark model with symmetry-breaking. The model is extended to all octet and decuplet baryons. In this model, the reduction of the quark spin, due to the spin dilution in the chiral splitting processes, is transferred into the orbital motion of quarks and antiquarks. The orbital angular momentum for each quark flavor in the proton as function of the partition factor $κ$ and the chiral splitting probability $a$ is shown. Although the total amount of the quark spin reduction i…
We present the numerical solution of the leading order QCD evolution equation for the orbital angular momentum distributions of quarks and gluons and discuss its implications for the nucleon spin sum rule. We observe that at small-$x$, the gluon helicity and orbital angular momentum distributions are roughly of the same magnitude but with opposite signs, indicating a significant cancellation between them. A similar cancellation occurs also in the quark sector. We explain analytically the reason for this cancellation.
The leading order evolution of parton orbital angular momenta is treated in the probabilistic manner. As a result, the splitting probability matrix, while coinciding with the recent explicit calculations, is expressed in the terms of the standard spin-dependent and spin-averaged kernels. The implied relations between spin and orbital angular momenta evolution kernels may be interpreted as resulting from the ambiguity in the separation of the angular momenta to the spin and orbital contributions and are likely to be valid for higher orders and twists. Consequently, the orbital and total angular…
The fundamental program in high energy spin physics focuses on the spin structure of the nucleon. The gluon and orbital angular momentum components of the nucleon spin are virtually unknown. The J_z=1/2 sum rule involves the integrated parton densities and can be used to extract information on the orbital angular momentum and its evolution. To avoid any bias on a model of Delta G, we assume that the gluon asymmetry, A=Delta G/G can be used to extract Delta G over a reasonable kinematic region. Combining the results for Delta G with the evolution equations, we can determine a theoretical expres…
The Regge behaviour of the solutions of a Dirac hamiltonian describing a heavy quark-light quark system in high orbital angular momentum states is analyzed. It is found that the solutions of a scalar confining potential are physically admissible while those of a vector confining potential are not. It is argued that with a Dirac hamiltonian a scalar confining potential is preferred over a vector confining potential for any value of the orbital angular momentum.
We study the quark angular momentum distribution in the nucleon within a light-front covariant quark model. Special emphasis is put into the orbital angular momentum: a quantity which is very sensitive to the relativistic treatment of the spin in a light-front dynamical approach. Discrepancies with the predictions of the low-energy traditional quark models where relativistic spin effects are neglected, are visible also after perturbative evolution to higher momentum scales. Orbital angular momentum distributions and their contribution to the spin sum rule are calculated for different phenomeno…
A theoretical prediction is given for the spin and orbital angular momentum distribution functions of the nucleon within the framework of an effective quark model of QCD, i.e. the chiral quark soliton model. An outstanding feature of the model is that it predicts fairly small quark spin fraction of the nucleon $ΔΣ\simeq 0.35$, which in turn dictates that the remaining 65% of the nucleon spin is carried by the orbital angular momentum of quarks and antiquarks at the model energy scale of $Q^2 \simeq 0.3 {GeV}^2$. This large orbital angular momentum necessarily affects the scenario of scale depe…
In the last decade, it has been realized that the orbital angular momentum of partons inside the nucleon plays a major role. It contributes significantly to nucleon properties and is at the origin of many asymmetries observed in spin physics. It is therefore of paramount importance to determine this quantity if we want to understand the nucleon internal structure and experimental observables. This triggered numerous discussions and controversies about the proper definition of orbital angular momentum and its extraction from experimental data. We summarize the present situation and discuss rece…
The individual parts of the total angular momentum operator in interacting theories cannot satisfy the canonical angular momentum commutation rule, including those proposed in the above paper. Furthermore, the operators in the new proposal a) are non-local in general gauge, b) do not have proper Lorentz transformation properties, and c) do not have any known physical measurements.
We calculate the Wigner functions for a quark target dressed with a gluon. These give a combined position and momentum space information of the quark distributions and are related to both generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and transverse momentum dependent parton distributions (TMDs). We calculate and compare the different definitions of quark orbital angular momentum in this model. We compare our results with other model calculations.
Analytical and numerical results, for the orbital and spin content carried by different quark flavors in the baryons, are given in the chiral quark model with symmetry breaking. The reduction of the quark spin, due to the spin dilution in the chiral splitting processes, is transferred into the orbital motion of quarks and antiquarks. The orbital angular momentum for each quark flavor in the proton as a function of the partition factor $κ$ and the chiral splitting probability $a$ is shown. The cancellation between the spin and orbital contributions in the spin sum rule and in the baryon magneti…
Definitions of orbital angular momentum based on Wigner distributions are used to discuss the connection between the Ji definition of the quark orbital angular momentum and that of Jaffe and Manohar. The difference between these two definitions can be interpreted as the change in the quark orbital angular momentum as it leaves the target in a DIS experiment. The mechanism responsible for that change is similar to the mechanism that causes transverse single-spin asymmetries in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering.
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.
Given a Wigner distribution simultaneously characterizing quark transverse positions and momenta in a proton, one can directly evaluate their cross-product, i.e., quark orbital angular momentum. The aforementioned distribution can be obtained by generalizing the proton matrix elements of quark bilocal operators which define transverse momentum-dependent parton distributions (TMDs); the transverse momentum information is supplemented with transverse position information by introducing an additional nonzero momentum transfer. A gauge connection between the quarks must be specified in the quark b…
We investigate the quark orbital angular momentum of the nucleon in the absence of gauge-field degrees of freedom, by using the concept of the Wigner distribution and the light-cone wave functions of the Fock state expansion of the nucleon. The quark orbital angular momentum is obtained from the phase-space average of the orbital angular momentum operator weighted with the Wigner distribution of unpolarized quarks in a longitudinally polarized nucleon. We also derive the light-cone wave function representation of the orbital angular momentum. In particular, we perform an expansion in the nucle…
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 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…
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 perform an analysis of the quark angular momentum in a light-cone representation by taking into account the effect due to the Melosh-Wigner rotation and find that there is a relativistic correction factor connecting the quark orbital angular momentum with the quark model spin distribution: $L_q(x)={<M_L(x)>}Δq_{QM}(x)$. The quark orbital angular momentum $L_q(x)$ and the quark helicity distribution $Δq(x)$ are connected to the quark model spin distribution $Δq_{QM}(x)$ by a relation: $\frac{1}{2}Δq(x)+ L_q(x)=\frac{1}{2}Δq_{QM}(x)$, which means that one can decompose the quark model spin co…
We analyze properties of electromagnetic radiation in helical undulators with a particular emphasis on orbital angular momentum of the radiated photons. We demonstrate that all harmonics higher than the first one radiated in a helical undulator carry an angular momentum. We discuss some possible applications of this phenomenon and the ways of effective generation of these photons in a helical undulator. We call for review of results of experiments performed where the higher harmonics radiated in a helical undulator might be involved.
We present an explicit realization of the Chen et al. approach to the proton spin decomposition in terms of Wilson lines, generalizing the light-front gauge-invariant extensions discussed recently by Hatta. Particular attention is drawn to the residual gauge freedom by further separating the pure-gauge term into contour and residual terms. We show that the kinetic orbital angular momentum operator can be expressed in terms of the Wigner operator only when the momentum variable is integrated over. Finally, we confirm from twist-2 arguments that the advanced, retarded and antisymmetric light-fro…
Theoretical progress on the formulation and classification of the quark and gluon orbital angular momenta (OAM) is reviewed. Their relation to parton distributions and open questions and puzzles are discussed. We give a status report on the lattice calculation of the parton kinetic and canonical OAM and point out several strategies to calculate the quark and gluon canonical OAM on the lattice.
The orbital angular momenta $L^u$ and $L^d$ of up and down quarks in the proton are estimated as functions of the energy scale as model-independently as possible, on the basis of Ji's angular momentum sum rule. This analysis indicates that $L^u - L^d$ is large and negative even at low energy scale of nonperturbative QCD, in contrast to Thomas' similar analysis based on the refined cloudy bag model. We pursuit the origin of this apparent discrepancy and suggest that it may have a connection with the fundamental question of how to define quark orbital angular momenta in QCD.
It is known how to access information on quark orbital angular momentum from generalized parton distribution functions, in a certain specified framework. It is intuitively expected, that such information can be accessed also through transverse momentum dependent distribution functions, but not known how. Now quark models provide promising hints. Recent results are reviewed.