Accessing the Longitudinally Polarized Photon Content of the Proton

Abstract

We investigate the QED Compton process (QEDCS) in longitudinally polarized lepton-proton scattering both in the elastic and inelastic channels and show that the cross section can be expressed in terms of the polarized equivalent photon distribution of the proton. We provide the necessary kinematical constraints to extract the polarized photon content of the proton using this process at HERMES, COMPASS and eRHIC. We also discuss the suppression of the major background process coming from virtual Compton scattering. We point out that such an experiment can give valuable information on $g_1(x_B, Q^2)$ in the small $x_B$, broad $Q^2$ region at the future polarized collider eRHIC and especially in the lower $Q^2$, medium $x_B$ region in fixed target experiments.

Version to appear in PRD