Lattice results for the longitudinal spin structure and color forces on quarks in a nucleon

TL;DR

This paper uses lattice QCD to compute moments of nucleon spin structure functions and color forces, providing insights into quark dynamics within protons and neutrons.

Contribution

First lattice QCD calculation of twist-2 and twist-3 contributions to nucleon spin structure functions using $N_f=2+1$ ensembles, including color force estimates.

Findings

Estimated $a_2$ and $d_2$ moments for proton and neutron.

Color Lorentz force on quarks in transversely polarized nucleons.

Results are in specific renormalization schemes with quantified uncertainties.

Abstract

Using lattice QCD, we calculate the twist-2 contribution $a_2$ to the third Mellin moment of the spin structure functions $g_1$ and $g_2$ in the nucleon. In addition we evaluate the twist-3 contribution $d_2$. Our computations make use of $N_f=2+1$ gauge field ensembles generated by the Coordinated Lattice Simulations (CLS) effort. Neglecting quark-line disconnected contributions we obtain as our best estimates $a_2^{(p)}= 0.069(17)$, $d_2^{(p)}= 0.0105(68)$ and $a_2^{(n)}= 0.0068(88)$, $d_2^{(n)}= -0.0009(70)$ for the proton and the neutron, respectively, where we use the normalizations given in Eqs. (58) and (59). While the $a_2$ results have been converted to the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ scheme using three-loop perturbation theory, the numbers for $d_2$ are given in the regularization independent momentum subtraction (RI$^\prime$-MOM) scheme, i.e., the conversion has been performed only in tree-level perturbation theory. The $d_2$ results can be interpreted as corresponding to a transverse color Lorentz force on a quark in a transversely polarized proton of size $F^{(u)} = 116(61)$ MeV/fm and $F^{(d)} = -38(66)$ MeV/fm for $u$ and $d$ quarks, respectively. The error estimates quoted include statistical and systematic uncertainties added in quadrature.