Proton Spin Structure from Measurable Parton Distributions

TL;DR

A polarization sum rule is derived from the leading generalized parton distributions appearing in hard exclusive processes and a helicity decomposition is obtained from well-known quark and gluon helicity distributions and orbital angular-momentum contributions.

Abstract

We present a systematic study of the proton spin structure in terms of measurable parton distributions. For a transversely-polarizedproton, we derive a polarization sum rule from the leading generalized parton distributions appearing in hard exclusive processes. For a longitudinally-polarized proton, we obtain a helicity decomposition from well-known quark and gluon helicity distributions and orbital angular-momentum contributions. The latter is shown to be related to measurable subleading generalized parton distributions and quantum-phase space Wigner distributions.