$^3$He spin-dependent structure functions within the relativistic Light-Front Hamiltonian dynamics

TL;DR

This paper calculates the spin-dependent structure functions of helium-3 using a relativistic light-front framework, providing insights for future polarized scattering experiments and neutron structure extraction.

Contribution

It introduces a Poincaré covariant light-front approach with realistic wave functions to evaluate helium-3 spin structure functions and proposes a method to extract neutron information.

Findings

Calculated $g^3_1(x)$ and $g^3_2(x)$ for helium-3.

Provided a procedure to extract neutron spin structure functions from helium-3 data.

Evaluated the first moment of $g^3_1(x)$ to test the Bjorken sum rule.

Abstract

$^3$He spin-dependent structure functions, $g^3_1(x)$ and $g^3_2(x)$, which parametrize the hadronic tensor in polarized deep-inelastic scattering, were evaluated within the Poincar\'e covariant light-front framework. The Bakamjian-Thomas construction of the Poincar\'e generators allows us to make use of a realistic $^3$He wave function, obtained from refined nuclear phenomenological potentials. The same approach was already successfully applied to the $^3$He and $^4$He unpolarized deep-inelastic scattering. To investigate the neutron polarized structure functions, $g^n_1$ and $g^n_2$, a readily implementable procedure, aimed at extracting the neutron spin structure functions from those of $^3$He, is shown to hold. Moreover, the first moment of $g^3_1(x)$ was evaluated, aiming at providing a valuable check of the Bjorken sum rule. The present analysis is relevant for experiments nvolving polarized beams planned at the future facilities, like the Electron Ion Colliders.