Measuring the Neutron Spin Asymmetry A1n in the Valence Quark Region in Hall C at Jefferson Lab

Abstract

The quest to understand how the nucleon spin is decomposed into its constituent quark and gluon spin and orbital angular momentum (OAM) components has been at the forefront of nuclear physics for decades. Due to the non-perturbative nature of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) - the theory describing how quarks and gluons bind together to form protons and neutrons - making absolute predictions of nucleon spin structure is generally difficult, especially as a function of its quark and gluon longitudinal momentum fraction x. Measurements involving nucleon spin structure serve as a sensitive test for QCD, including ab-initio lattice QCD calculations due to the advent of the quasi-PDF formalism, and various predictions that diverge at large-x. The neutron spin asymmetry A1n at high-x is a key observable for probing nucleon spin structure. In the valence domain (x > 0.5), sea effects are expected to be negligible, and so the total nucleon spin is considered to be carried by the valence quarks. The valence region can therefore enable us to study the role of quark OAM and other non-perturbative effects of the strong force. A1^n was measured in the deep inelastic scattering region of 0.40 < x < 0.75 and 6 < Q^2 < 10 GeV^2 in Hall C at Jefferson Lab using a 10.4 GeV longitudinally polarized electron beam, upgraded polarized He-3 target, and the High Momentum Spectrometer (HMS) and Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS). E12-06-110 provides the first precision data in the valence quark region above x = 0.60, and its preliminary results proved consistent with earlier data disqualifying a pQCD model that excluded quark OAM. Combined with previous world proton data, the ratio of the polarized-to-unpolarized up quark momentum distribution (∆u + ∆anti-u)/(u + anti-u) remained positive at large-x, and the down quark (∆d + ∆anti-d)/(d + anti-d) remained negative.