New Data-Driven Constraints on the Sign of Gluon Polarization in the Proton

Journal Article · 16 October 2024 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.161901 · OSTI ID:2472446

Hunt-Smith, N. T. ; Cocuzza, C. ; Melnitchouk, W. ; Sato, N.; Thomas, A. W. ; White, M. J.

Recently, the possible existence of negative gluon helicity $\mathrm{\Delta }g$ has been observed to be compatible with existing empirical constraints, including from jet production in polarized proton-proton collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and lattice QCD data on polarized gluon Ioffe time distributions. We perform a new global analysis of polarized parton distributions in the proton with new constraints from the high- $x$ region of deep-inelastic scattering (DIS). A dramatic reduction in the quality of the fit for the negative $\mathrm{\Delta }g$ replicas compared to those with positive $\mathrm{\Delta }g$ suggests that the negative $\mathrm{\Delta }g$ solution cannot simultaneously account for high- $x$ polarized DIS data along with lattice and polarized jet data. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-06OR23177
• OSTI ID: 2472446
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 16 Vol. 133; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Publisher: American Physical SocietyCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English