arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Masashi Wakamatsu.
The recent controversy on the nucleon spin decomposition problem is critically overviewed. We argue that there exist two and only two physically inequivalent gauge-invariant decompositions of the longitudinal nucleon spin, contrary to the rapidly spreading view in the QCD spin physics community that there are infinitely many decompositions of the nucleon spin.
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 momentum in the nucleon can be made more transparent, by investigating a related but much simpler example from electrodynamics. We also make clear several remaining issues in the spin and momentum decomposition problem of the nucleon. We clarify the relationship between the evolution equations of orbital angular momenta corresponding to the two different decompositions above. We also try to answer the question whether the two different decompositions of the nucleon momentum really lead to different evolution equations, thereby predicting conflicting asymptotic values for the quark and gluon momentum fractions in the nucleon.
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-dependent quantities, which is meaningful only within a specific theoretical model of the nucleon.
In a recent paper, based on the Skyrme model with the Wess-Zumino-Witten term including electromagnetism, Eto et al. pointed out an intriguing possibility that the Gell-Mann-Nishijima relation is corrected under the presence of back-ground electromagnetic fields, thereby being led to the conclusion that even a neutron acquires non-zero net charge in external magnetic fields. We point out that this remarkable conclusion is inseparably connected with an unwelcome feature of the gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten action, i.e. the non-conservation of source current of Maxwell equation.
In recent papers, we have established the existence of gauge-invariant decomposition of nucleon spin, each term of which can be related to known high-energy deep-inelastic-scattering observables. A subtlety remains, however, for the intrinsic spin part of gluons at the quantum level. In fact, it was sometimes claimed that the evolution of gluon spin depends on the gauge choice and its physical interpretation makes sense only in the light-cone gauge. In the present paper, we will demonstrate explicitly that the gluon spin operator appearing in our decomposition evolves gauge-independently and that it properly reproduces the familiar evolution equation for the 1st moments of polarized quark and gluon distributions obtained with the Altarelli-Parisi method, which cannot directly be checked by the standard operator expansion method.
Based on gauge-invariant decomposition of covariant angular momentum tensor of QCD in an arbitrary Lorentz frame, we investigate the relation between the known decompositions of the nucleon spin into its constituents, thereby clarifying in what respect they are common and in what respect they are different critically. We argue that the decomposition of Bashinsky and Jaffe, that of Chen et al., and that of Jaffe and Manohar are contained in our more general decomposition, after an appropriate gauge-fixing in a suitable Lorentz frame, which means that they all {\it gauge-equivalent}. We however point out that there is another gauge-invariant decomposition of the nucleon spin, which is closer to the Ji decomposition, while allowing the decomposition of the gluon total angular momentum into its spin and orbital parts. An advantage of the latter decomposition is that each of the four terms corresponds to a definite observable, which can be extracted from high-energy deep-inelastic-scattering measurements.
We carry out a systematic investigation of twist-two spin dependent structure functions of the nucleon within the framework of the chiral quark soliton model (CQSM) by paying special attention to the role of chiral symmetry of QCD. The importance of chiral symmetry is illustrated through the good reproduction of the recent SLAC data for the neutron spin structure function $g_1^n (x,Q^2)$. We also observe substantial difference between the predictions of the longitudinally polarized distribution functions and those of the transversity distribution functions. That the chiral symmetry may be responsible for this difference is seen in the isospin dependence of the corresponding first moments, i.e. the axial and tensor charges. The CQSM predicts $g_A^{(0)} / g_A^{(3)} \simeq 0.25$ for the ratio of the isoscalar to isovector axial charges, while $g_T^{(0)} / g_T^{(3)} \simeq 0.46$ for the ratio of the isoscalar to isovector tensor charges, which should be compared with the prediction $g_A^{(0)} / g_A^{(3)} = g_T^{(0)} / g_T^{(3)} = 3 / 5$ of the constituent quark model or of the naive MIT bag model without proper account of chiral symmetry. Another prominent prediction of the CQSM is the opposite polarization of the $\bar{u}$ and $\bar{d}$ antiquarks, thereby indicating the SU(2) asymmetric sea quark (spin) polarization in the nucleon.
The isospin asymmetry of the sea quark distribution as well as the unexpectedly small quark spin fraction of the nucleon are two outstanding discoveries recently made in the physics of deep-inelastic structure functions. We evaluate here the corresponding quark distribution functions within the framework of the chiral quark soliton model, which is an effective quark model of baryons maximally incorporating the most important feature of low energy QCD, i.e. the chiral symmetry and its spontaneous breakdown. It is shown that the model can explain qualitative features of the above-mentioned nucleon structure functions within a single framework, thereby disclosing the importance of chiral symmetry in the physics of high energy deep-inelastic scatterings.