Constituent Quarks and the Gluonic Contribution to the Spin of the Nucleon

Eldahoumi, Gamal (2009): Constituent Quarks and the Gluonic Contribution to the Spin of the Nucleon. Dissertation, LMU München: Faculty of Physics

Abstract

The internal structure of the nucleon is more complicated than expected in a simple quark model. In particular, the portion of the nucleon spin carried by the spins of the quarks is not, as expected, of the order of one, but according to the experimental data much smaller. In this thesis we study the spin structure of the proton in quantum chromodynamics. The constituent quark model, based on SU(6), predicts that the spin of the proton should be carried by the quarks, in disagreement with the experiments. It appears strange, that the theoretical model works so well for the magnetic moments of the nucleons, but not for the spin, although the spin and the magnetic moments are closely related to each other. We shall resolve this problem by assuming that the constituent quarks have an internal structure on their own. Thus a constituent quark has a dynamical structure, and we can introduce notions like the quark or gluon distributions inside a constituent quark. In the light of new experimental data from HERMES, COMPASS, J-Lab, and RHIC-spin, the current status of our knowledge of the spin structure is discussed in the two theoretical frameworks: the naive parton model, and the QCD evolved parton model. QCD a is successful theory, both in perturbative and non-perturbative regions, but the spin of the nucleon still needs to be explained within QCD.

• Item Type: Theses (Dissertation, LMU Munich)
• Subjects: 500 Natural sciences and mathematics; 500 Natural sciences and mathematics > 530 Physics
• Faculties: Faculty of Physics
• Language: English
• Date of oral examination: 29. April 2009
• 1. Referee: Fritzsch, Harald
• Signature of the printed copy: 0001/UMC 17754