We investigate the quark orbital angular momentum of the nucleon in the absence of gauge-field degrees of freedom, by using the concept of the Wigner distribution and the light-cone wave functions of the Fock-state expansion of the nucleon. The quark orbital angular momentum is obtained from the phase-space average of the orbital angular momentum operator weighted with the Wigner distribution of unpolarized quarks in a longitudinally polarized nucleon. We also derive the light-cone wave-function representation of the orbital angular momentum. In particular, we perform an expansion in the nucleon Fock-state space and decompose the orbital angular momentum into the N-parton state contributions. Explicit expressions are presented in terms of the light-cone wave functions of the three-quark Fock state. Numerical results for the up and down quark orbital angular momenta of the proton are shown in the light-cone constituent quark model and the light-cone chiral quark-soliton model.

Quark orbital angular momentum from Wigner distributions and light-cone wave functions

PASQUINI, BARBARA;
2012-01-01

Abstract

We investigate the quark orbital angular momentum of the nucleon in the absence of gauge-field degrees of freedom, by using the concept of the Wigner distribution and the light-cone wave functions of the Fock-state expansion of the nucleon. The quark orbital angular momentum is obtained from the phase-space average of the orbital angular momentum operator weighted with the Wigner distribution of unpolarized quarks in a longitudinally polarized nucleon. We also derive the light-cone wave-function representation of the orbital angular momentum. In particular, we perform an expansion in the nucleon Fock-state space and decompose the orbital angular momentum into the N-parton state contributions. Explicit expressions are presented in terms of the light-cone wave functions of the three-quark Fock state. Numerical results for the up and down quark orbital angular momenta of the proton are shown in the light-cone constituent quark model and the light-cone chiral quark-soliton model.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11571/430134
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