We study the twist-3 spin-orbit correlations of quarks described by the nucleon matrix elements of the parity-odd rank-2 tensor QCD operator (the parity-odd partner of the QCD energy-momentum tensor). Our treatment is based on the effective dynamics emerging from the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and the mean-field picture of the nucleon in the large-$N_c$ limit. The twist-3 QCD operators are converted to effective operators, in which the QCD interactions are replaced by spin-flavor-dependent chiral interactions of the quarks with the pion field. We compute the nucleon matrix elements of the twist-3 effective operators and discuss the role of the chiral interactions in the spin-orbit correlations. We derive the first-quantized representation in the mean-field picture and develop a quantum-mechanical interpretation. The chiral interactions give rise to new spin-orbit couplings and qualitatively change the correlations compared to the quark model picture. We also derive the twist-3 matrix elements in the topological soliton picture where the quarks are integrated out (skyrmion). The methods used here can be extended to other QCD operators describing higher-twist nucleon structure and generalized parton distributions.
Interactions of charmed and strange mesons with baryonic matter can be calculated in the nonrelativistic quark potential model. For KN scattering data exists, and the theoretical results for S-waves are in approximate agreement with experiment. Here we apply the same model to the scattering of open-charm (D) mesons by nucleons, and give quark model predictions for DN scattering amplitudes. Spin-orbit forces in KN and DN will also be discussed.
It is shown that intrinsic orbital motion of the valence quarks has large influences on the spin-dependent as well as the spin-averaged nucleon structure functions. Its connection with the observed ``very small contribution of quark spin to nucleon spin'' and the observed violation of Gottfried sum rule is discussed.
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…
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…
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 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 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 address and solve the long-standing gauge-invariance problem of the nucleon spin structure. 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. Our research also justifies the traditional use of the canonical, gauge-dependent angular momentum operators of photons and electrons in the multipole-radiation analysis and labeling of atomic states; and sheds much light on the related energy-momentum problem in …
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.
Color confinement and chiral symmetry specify some important territory for the study of hadronic physics. Any hadron can be defined as a color-singlet composite system of qurks and gluons, the fundamental fields of qcd, while the landscape of the hadronic spectrum is dominated by the fact that two quark flavors, u and d, are characterized by masses small compared to the fundamental scale of this theory. Measurements sensitive to the orbital angular momenta of the color constituents of the nucleon display the interplay of chiral dynamics and confinement in a unique manner. This pageant can be e…
We investigate the electric form factors of the nucleon and Roper resonance using a quark-diquark model. We find that the charge radii of the nucleon and Roper resonance are almost the same in size.
A dynamical quark model of hadron and nucleus structure is proposed. In the frame of the model, called the Strongly Correlated Quark Model, quarks and nucleons inside nuclei are arranged in a crystal--like structure.
We analize semi-inclusive electron-nucleus processes e+A->e'+h+X at moderate Q**2 and energy transfer nu. Our results show that nucleons bound in the nuclear medium are distributed according to a function f_A that reduces to the standard light-cone distribution in the Bjorken limit and exhibits a sizeable Q**2-dependence at lower Q**2, particular Q**2 is order of nu**2.
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…
Using the expansion of the baryon wave function in a series of products of single quark bispinors (Dirac orbitals), the nonsinglet axial and tensor charges of a nucleon are calculated. The leading term yields $g_A = 1.27$ in good agreement with experiment. Calculation is essentially parameter-free and depends only on the strong coupling constant value $α_s$. The importance of lower Dirac bispinor component, yielding 18% to the wave function normalization is stressed. As a check, the baryon decuplet masses in the formalism of this model are also computed using standard values of the string tens…
The scattering amplitude of polarized nucleons has been found within the framework of the Klein Gordon with the phenomenological spin - orbit potential. It has the Glauber type representation. The differential cross sections of polarized nucleon are considered and discussed.The Yukawa potential is applied for this problem to determine the polarization of high energy scattering nucleons.
Within the skyrmion approach for the nucleon-nucleon force, difficulties have been experienced in obtaining an isoscalar attractive spin-orbit potential, in parallel to the problems of finding attraction in the isoscalar central potential. We here study the spin-orbit force using a skyrmion with four- and six-derivative stabilizing terms in the lagrangian as well as with the crucial addition of a dilaton. With these features present the spin-orbit force proves to be attractive as does the central potential. In the absence of the dilaton, attraction can also be found for the spin-orbit potentia…
I introduce a gauge invariant decomposition of the nucleon spin into quark helicity, quark orbital, and gluon contributions. The total quark (and hence the quark orbital) contribution is shown to be measurable through virtual Compton scattering in a special kinematic region where single quark scattering dominates. This deeply-virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) has much potential to unravel the quark and gluon structure of the nucleon.
The forward-backward multiplicity correlation strength is calculated for arbitrary nucleus-nucleus collision in the framework of the wounded nucleon model. Discussion of our results in the context of the recent STAR data in Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s}=200 GeV is presented. It is suggested that the observed (i) growth of the correlation coefficient with centrality and (ii) approximately flat pseudorapidity dependence of the correlation strength for central collisions are due to the fluctuations of the number of wounded nucleons at a given centrality bin.
We demonstrate that perturbative QCD leads to positive 3D parton--parton correlations inside nucleon explaining a factor two enhancement of the cross section of multi-parton interactions observed at Tevatron at $x_i\ge 0.01$ as compared to the predictions of the independent parton approximation. We also find that though perturbative correlations decrease with $x$ decreasing, the nonperturbative mechanism kicks in and should generate correlation which, at $x$ below $10^{-3}$, is comparable in magnitude with the perturbative one for $x\sim 0.01$.
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 due to final state interactions as it leaves the target in a DIS experiment.
A linear correlation is found between the magnitude of nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations and the nuclear binding energy per nucleon with pairing energy removed. By using this relation, the strengths of nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations of some unmeasured nuclei are predicted. Discussions on nucleon-nucleon pairing energy and nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations are made. The found nuclear dependence of nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations may shed some lights on the short-range structure of nucleus.
An unified scheme for describing both spin and orbital motion in symmetry-breaking chiral quark model is suggested. The analytic results of the spin and orbital angular momenta carried by different quark flavors in the nucleon are given. The quark spin reduction due to spin-flip in the chiral splitting processes is compensated by the increase of the orbital angular momentum carried by the quarks and antiquarks. The sum of both spin and orbital angular momenta in the nucleon is 1/2, if the gluons and other degrees of freedom are neglected. The same conclusion holds for other octet and decuplet …
We study the orbital angular momentum structure of the quarks inside the proton. By employing the light-cone diquark model and the overlap representation formalism, we calculate the chiral-even generalized parton distribution functions (GPDs) $H_q(x,ξ,Δ^2)$, $\widetilde{H}_q(x,ξ,Δ^2)$ and $E_q(x,ξ,Δ^2)$ at zero skewedness for $q=u$ and $d$ quarks. In our model $E_u$ and $E_d$ have opposite sign with similar size. Those GPDs are applied to calculate the orbital angular momentum (OAM) distributions, showing that $L_u(x)$ is positive, while $L_d(x)$ is consistent with zero compared with $L_u(x)$.…
I study the effect of scalar and spin-orbit absorption potentials, in the production of a nonzero Sivers-like asymmetry in hadron-hadron high energy collisions (Drell-Yan and single spin asymmetries). A basic model is built for the intrinsic state of a quark in the projectile hadron. S-wave and P-wave 2-component states are considered. Before the hard event, this quark is subject to absorbing scalar and spin-orbit local mean fields simulating interactions with a composite target. The relevant interaction terms are found to be the imaginary diagonal spin-orbit ones. Spin rotating terms, and sca…
We investigate the correlations between the quark spin and orbital angular momentum inside the nucleon. Similarly to the Ji relation, we show that these correlations can be expressed in terms of specific moments of measurable parton distributions. This provides a whole new piece of information about the partonic structure of the nucleon.
Inclusive $A(e,e')X$ and semi-inclusive $A(e,e'N)X$ deep inelastic electron scattering processes off few-nucleon systems are investigated at $x > 1$, showing some of the relevant features of the cross section which are sensitive to the effects arising from nucleon-nucleon correlations and possible exotic multiquark cluster configurations at short internucleon separations.
We demonstrate that there exist two kinds of gauge-invariant decompositions of the nucleon spin, which are physically inequivalent. The quark and gluon orbital angular momenta (OAMs) appearing in one decomposition are basically the canonical OAMs, while the quark and gluon OAMs appearing in another decomposition are called the dynamical OAMs. It is shown that the dynamical OAMs of quarks and gluons in the nucleon can be related to definite high-energy deep-inelastic-scattering observables. On the other hand, we conjecture that the canonical OAMs of quarks and gluon in the nucleon are model-dep…
Valence-shell nucleon knock-out experiments, such as 12C(e,e'p)11B, measure less strength then is predicted by independent particle shell model calculations. The theoretical solution to this problem is to include the correlations between the nucleons in the nucleus in the calculations. Motivated by these results, many electron scattering experiments have tried to directly observe these correlations in order to gain new insight into the short-range part of the nucleon-nucleon potential. Unfortunately, many competing mechanisms can cause the same observable final-state as an initial-state correl…
We study the chromodynamical gauge symmetry in relation to the internal spin structure of the nucleon. We show that 1) even in the helicity eigenstates the gauge-dependent spin and orbital angular momentum operators do not have gauge-independent matrix element; 2) the evolution equations for the gluon spin take very different forms in the Feynman and axial gauges, but yield the same leading behavior in the asymptotic limit; 3) the complete evolution of the gauge-dependent orbital angular momenta appears intractable in the light-cone gauge. We define a new gluon orbital angular momentum distrib…
We investigate the effect of nucleon-nucleon correlations on the initial condition of ultra-central heavy ion collisions at LHC energies. We calculate the eccentricities of the MC-Glauber and IP-Glasma models in the 0--1% centrality class and show that they are considerably affected by the inclusion of such type of correlations. For an IP-Glasma initial condition, we further demonstrate that this effect survives the fluid-dynamical evolution of the system and can be observed in its final state azimuthal momentum anisotropy.
The Sivers mechanism for the single-spin asymmetry in unpolarized lepton scattering from a transversely polarized nucleon is driven by the orbital angular momentum carried by its quark and gluon constituents, combined with QCD final-state interactions. Both quark and gluon mechanisms can generate such a single-spin asymmetry, though only the quark mechanism can explain the small single-spin asymmetry measured by the COMPASS collaboration on the deuteron, suggesting the gluon mechanism is small relative to the quark mechanism. We detail empirical studies through which the gluon and quark orbita…
Semi-inclusive deep inelastic lepton scattering off few-nucleon systems is investigated assuming that virtual boson absorption occurs on a hadronic cluster which can be either a two-nucleon correlated pair or a six-quark bag. In both cases the relevance of nuclear effects on forward and backward nucleon emissions is illustrated and the differences expected in the energy distribution of the emitted nucleons are analyzed both at x>1 and x<1.
Inclusive electron scattering off few-nucleon systems is investigated at $x>1$ and high momentum transfer, including the contributions from quasi-elastic and deep inelastic scattering processes. It is shown that at $x>1$ the inclusive cross section is dominated by the process of virtual photon absorption on a pair of correlated nucleons both in case of quasi-elastic and deep inelastic scattering events. The sensitivity of the nuclear response to the effects arising from the possible presence of multiquark cluster configurations at short internucleon separations as well as from possible medium-…
The effects of the spin-orbit and the tensor parts of the instanton-induced interaction on the excited nonstrange baryons up to $N$=2 and on the two-nucleon systems are investigated. The spin-orbit force from the instanton-induced interaction cancels most of that from the one-gluon exchange in the excited baryons while the spin-orbit force in the nucleon systems remains strong after the inclusion of the instanton-induced interaction. The model including the spin-orbit and the tensor terms of the instanton-induced interaction as well as the one-gluon exchange is found to reproduce successfully …
Different types of high-energy hadron-nucleus cross sections are discussed emphasizing the role played by Nucleon-Nucleon (NN) Short-Range Correlations (SRC) and Gribov Inelastic Shadowing (IS)
The importance of the effects of nucleon-nucleon (NN) short-range correlations (SRC) and Gribov inelastic shadowing (IS) on various high energy scattering processes involving nuclear targets is demonstrated within an improved Glauber-Gribov approach.
A sample of two proton and no pion events selected in the ArgoNeuT neutrino scattering experiment on liquid argon target [Phys. Rev. D90 (2014) 012008] is analyzed with NuWro Monte Carlo event generator. An attempt is made to estimate how likely it is to obtain observed numbers of laboratory frame and reconstructed back-to-back nucleon pairs. For laboratory frame back-to-back events a clear data/MC discrepancy is seen. For the reconstructed nucleon pairs a good agreement is reported. We provide a simple kinematical argument why this accordance is expected.
We study the Wigner functions of the nucleon which provide multidimensional images of the quark distributions in phase space. These functions can be obtained through a Fourier transform in the transverse space of the generalized transverse-momentum dependent parton distributions. They depend on both the transverse position and the three-momentum of the quark relative to the nucleon, and therefore combine in a single picture all the information contained in the generalized parton distributions and the transverse-momentum dependent parton distributions. We focus the discussion on the distributio…
We briefly review the spin structure of the nucleon and show that it is best thought in the light-front formulation. We discuss in particular the longitudinal and transverse spin sum rules, the proper definition of canonical orbital angular momentum and the spin-orbit correlation.
The nucleon-nucleon potential is analysed using the 1/N_c expansion of QCD. The NN potential is shown to have an expansion in 1/N_c^2, and the strengths of the leading order central, spin-orbit, tensor, and quadratic spin-orbit forces (including isospin dependence) are determined. Comparison with a successful phenomenological potential (Nijmegen) shows that the large-N_c analysis explains many of the qualitative features observed in the nucleon-nucleon interaction. The 1/N_c expansion implies an effective Wigner supermultiplet symmetry for light nuclei. Results for baryons containing strange q…
The influence of nucleon-nucleon short-ranged correlations (SRC) on nuclear super-allowed $β$ decay is examined. The need for this is driven by the observed depletion of spectroscopic strength obtained in studies of $(e,e')$ and $(d,^3{\rm He})$ reactions on a wide variety of nuclei. We show that the influence of SRC is model-dependent, but may be very substantial. The $^{46}$V nucleus is used as an example. The resulting impact on studies of the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element is discussed.
The overlap of the nucleons in nuclei plays an important role in understanding the nuclear dependence of deep inelastic scattering data. It is shown that the nuclear modification of the higher twist scale can be essentially determined by the overlapping volume per nucleon and this effect gives a large contribution to nuclear shadowing for small $x$ and low $Q^2$. In this kinematical region there is also a moderate enhancement of the longitudinal structure function in nuclei.
We investigate the influence of the central two-body NN correlations on several quantities observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is demonstrated with explicit Monte Carlo simulations, that the basic correlation measures, such as the fluctuations of participant eccentricity, initial size fluctuations, or the fluctuations of the number of sources producing particles, are all sensitive to the inclusion of the two-body correlations. The effect is at the level of about 10-20%. Moreover, the realistic (Gaussian) correlation function gives indistinguishable results from the hard-core repu…
In a series of papers, we have established the existence of two gauge-invariant decompositions of the nucleon spin, which are physically nonequivalent. The orbital angular momenta of quarks and gluons appearing in these two decompositions are gauge-invariant dynamical orbital angular momenta and "generalized" canonical orbital angular momenta with gauge-invariance, respectively. The key quantity, which characterizes the difference between these two types of orbital angular momenta is what-we-call the {\it potential angular momentum}. We argue that the physical meaning of the potential angular …
The scalar-isoscalar mode of QCD becomes lighter/nearly massless close to the chiral transition/second-order critical point. From nuclear physics we know that this mode is the main responsible for the attractive part of the nucleon-nucleon potential at inter-particle distances of 1-2 fm. Therefore one expects that close to the critical point there is a long-range strong attraction among nucleons. Using a Walecka-Serot model for the NN potential we study the effects of the critical point in a finite system of nucleons and mesons by solving classical Molecular Dynamics+Langevin equations for the…
By analyzing recent microscopic many-body calculations of few-nucleon systems and complex nuclei performed by different groups in terms of realistic nucleon-nucleon (NN) interactions, it is shown that NN short-range correlations (SRCs) have a universal character, in that the correlation hole that they produce in nuclei appears to be almost A-independent and similar to the correlation hole in the deuteron. The correlation hole creates high-momentum components, missing in a mean-field (MF) description and exhibiting several scaling properties and a peculiar spin-isospin structure. In particular,…
Using realistic wave functions, the proton-neutron and proton-proton momentum distributions in $^3He$ and $^4He$ are calculated as a function of the relative, $k_{rel}$, and center of mass, $K_{CM}$, momenta, and the angle between them. For large values of ${k}_{rel}\gtrsim 2\,\,fm^{-1}$ and small values of ${K}_{CM} \lesssim 1.0\,\,fm^{-1}$, both distributions are angle independent and decrease with increasing $K_{CM}$, with the $pn$ distribution factorizing into the deuteron momentum distribution times a rapidly decreasing function of $K_{CM}$, in agreement with the two-nucleon (2N) short ra…
This article reviews our current understanding of how the internal quark structure of a nucleon bound in nuclei differs from that of a free nucleon. We focus on the interpretation of measurements of the EMC effect for valence quarks, a reduction in the Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) cross-section ratios for nuclei relative to deuterium, and its possible connection to nucleon-nucleon Short-Range Correlations (SRC) in nuclei. Our review and new analysis (involving the amplitudes of non-nucleonic configurations in the nucleus) of the available experimental and theoretical evidence shows that the…
We study the nucleon's partonic angular momentum (AM) content at peripheral transverse distances $b = \mathcal{O}(M_π^{-1})$, where the structure is governed by chiral dynamics. We compute the nucleon form factors of the energy-momentum tensor in chiral effective field theory (ChEFT) and construct the transverse densities of AM at fixed light-front time. In the periphery the spin density is suppressed, and the AM is predominantly orbital. In the first-quantized representation of ChEFT in light-front form, the field-theoretical AM density coincides with the quantum-mechanical orbital AM density…
A relativistic light front formulation of nuclear dynamics is developed and applied to treating infinite nuclear matter in a method which includes the correlations of pairs of nucleons: this is light front Brueckner theory. We start with a hadronic meson-baryon Lagrangian that is consistent with chiral symmetry. This is used to obtain a light front version of a one-boson-exchange nucleon-nucleon potential (OBEP). The accuracy of our description of the nucleon-nucleon (NN) data is good, and similar to that of other relativistic OBEP models. We derive, within the light front formalism, the Hartr…
