Nucleon and nuclear spin structure functions

A theoretical approach to the investigation of spin-dependent structure functions in deep inelastic scattering of polarized leptons off polarized nuclei, based on the effective meson-nucleon theory and operator product expansion method, is proposed and applied to deuteron and $^3He$. The explicit forms of the moments of the deuteron and $^3He$ spin-dependent structure functions are found and numerical estimates of the influence of nuclear structure effects are presented.

We study deep-inelastic scattering from polarized nuclei within a covariant framework. A clear connection is established between relativistic and non-relativistic limits, which enables a rigorous derivation of convolution formulae for the spin-dependent nuclear structure functions g_1^A and g_2^A in terms of off-mass-shell extrapolations of polarized nucleon structure functions, g_1^N and g_2^N. Approximate expressions for g_{1,2}^A are obtained by expanding the off-shell g_{...

The spin-structure functions $g_1$ and $g_2$, and the spin-dependent partial cross-section $\sigma_\mathrm{TT}$ have been extracted from the polarized cross-sections differences, $\Delta \sigma_{\parallel}\hspace{-0.06cm}\left(\nu,Q^{2}\right)$ and $\Delta \sigma_{\perp}\hspace{-0.06cm}\left(\nu,Q^{2}\right)$ measured for the $\vec{^\textrm{3}\textrm{He}}(\vec{\textrm{e}},\textrm{e}')\textrm{X}$ reaction, in the E97-110 experiment at Jefferson Lab. Polarized electrons with en...

The possibility to safely extract the neutron deep inelastic structure function $F_2^n(x)$ in the range $0 \le x \le 0.9$ from joint measurements of deep inelastic structure functions of $^{3}He$ and $^{3}H$ is demonstrated. While the nuclear structure effects are relevant, the model dependence in this extraction linked to the $N-N$ interaction is shown to be weak.

A comprehensive treatement of the theoretical approach for describing nuclear effects in inclusive scattering of polarized electrons by polarized $^3$He is presented.

The nuclear effects in the spin-dependent structure function $g_1$ of the deuteron are studied in the kinematics of future experiments at CEBAF, ($\nu \leq 3~GeV, ~Q^2 \leq 2~GeV^2$). The magnitude of the nuclear effects is found to be significantly larger than the one occurring in deep inelastic scattering ($\nu\to \infty, ~Q^2\to \infty$). We discuss the mechanism leading to large effects in the region of the nucleon resonances. A possibility to measure the neutron structur...

We report on a precision measurement of the neutron spin structure function $g^n_1$ using deep inelastic scattering of polarized electrons by polarized ^3He. For the kinematic range 0.014<x<0.7 and 1 (GeV/c)^2< Q^2< 17 (GeV/c)^2, we obtain $\int^{0.7}_{0.014} g^n_1(x)dx = -0.036 \pm 0.004 (stat) \pm 0.005 (syst)$ at an average $Q^2=5 (GeV/c)^2$. We find relatively large negative values for $g^n_1$ at low $x$. The results call into question the usual Regge theory method for ex...

We present a comprehensive analysis of the nuclear effects important in DIS on polarized He-3 over a wide range of Bjorken x, 10^{-4} \leq x \leq 0.8. Effects relevant for the extraction of the neutron spin structure function, g1^n, from the He-3 data are emphasized.

We have measured the proton and deuteron spin structure functions g_1^p and g_1^d in the region of the nucleon resonances for W^2 < 5 GeV^2 and $Q^2\simeq 0.5$ and $Q^2\simeq 1.2$ GeV^2 by inelastically scattering 9.7 GeV polarized electrons off polarized $^{15}NH_3$ and $^{15}ND_3$ targets. We observe significant structure in g_1^p in the resonance region. We have used the present results, together with the deep-inelastic data at higher W^2, to extract $\Gamma(Q^2)\equiv\int...

The neutron spin structure function, $g_{1n}$, has been of considerable interest recently in connection with the Bjorken sum rule and the proton spin crisis. Work on this problem has concentrated on measurements at low-$x$. We recall the important, non-perturbative physics to be learnt by going instead to larger values of $x$ and especially from a determination of the place where the expected sign change occurs. Of course, in order to obtain neutron data one must use nuclear ...