Glue spin and helicity in proton from lattice QCD

Abstract

We report the first lattice QCD calculation of the glue spin in the nucleon. The lattice calculation is carried out with valence overlap fermions on 2+1 flavor DWF gauge configurations on four lattice spacings and four volumes including an ensemble with physical values for the quark masses. The glue spin $S_{G}$ in the Coulomb gauge in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme is obtained with the 1-loop perturbative matching. We find the results fairly insensitive to lattice spacing and quark masses. We also find that the proton momentum dependence of $S_G$ in the range $0\leq |\vec{p}| < 1.5$ GeV is very mild, and we determine it in the large momentum limit to be $S_{G}=0.251(47)(16)$ at the physical pion mass in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme at $μ^2=10$ GeV$^2$. If the matching procedure in large momentum effective theory is neglected, $S_G$ is equal to the glue helicity measured in high-energy scattering experiments.

Version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, 4 pages, 4 figures, supplemental materials are attached after the content