Parity Violating Deep Inelastic Electron-Deuteron Scattering: Higher Twist and Parton Angular Momentum

TL;DR

This paper investigates how parton angular momentum influences higher-twist corrections in parity-violating deep inelastic scattering, suggesting precise measurements could reveal details about nucleon spin dynamics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that twist-four corrections are unaffected by parton angular momentum, offering a new way to probe nucleon spin structure through PVDIS asymmetry measurements.

Findings

Higher-twist correction is insensitive to parton angular momentum.

PVDIS asymmetry measurements can provide insights into nucleon spin dynamics.

Parton angular momentum effects are decoupled from certain higher-twist corrections.

Abstract

We study the effect of parton angular momentum on the twist-four correction to the left-right asymmetry in the electron-deuteron parity-violating deep inelastic scattering (PVDIS). We show that this higher-twist correction is transparent to the dynamics of parton angular momentum needed to account for the Sivers and Boer-Mulders functions and spin-independent parton distribution functions. A sufficiently precise measurement of the PVDIS asymmetry may, thus, provide additional information about the parton dynamics responsible for nucleon spin.