Measurements of d2n and A1n: Probing the neutron spin structure

We report on the results of the E06-014 experiment performed at Jefferson Lab in Hall A, where a precision measurement of the twist-3 matrix element d2 of the neutron (d2n) was conducted. The quantity d2n represents the average color Lorentz force a struck quark experiences in a deep inelastic electron scattering event off a neutron due to its interaction with the hadronizing remnants. This color force was determined from a linear combination of the third moments of the He3 spin structure functions, g1 and g2, after nuclear corrections had been applied to these moments. The structure functions were obtained from a measurement of the unpolarized cross section and of double-spin asymmetries in the scattering of a longitudinally polarized electron beam from a transversely and a longitudinally polarized He3 target. The measurement kinematics included two average Q2 bins of 3.2 GeV2 and 4.3 GeV2, and Bjorken-x 0.25≤x≤0.90 covering the deep inelastic and resonance regions. We have found that d2n is small and negative for Q2©=3.2 GeV2, and even smaller for Q2 ©=4.3 GeV2, consistent with the results of a lattice QCD calculation. The twist-4 matrix element f2n was extracted by combining our measured d2n with the world data on the first moment in x of g1n, Γ1n. We found f2n to be roughly an order of magnitude larger than d2n. Utilizing the extracted d2n and f2n data, we separated the Lorentz color force into its electric and magnetic components, FEy,n and FBy,n, and found them to be equal and opposite in magnitude, in agreement with the predictions from an instanton model but not with those from QCD sum rules. Furthermore, using the measured double-spin asymmetries, we have extracted the virtual photon-nucleon asymmetry on the neutron A1n, the structure function ratio g1n/F1n, and the quark ratios (Δu+Δū)/(u+ū) and (Δd+Δd)/(d+d). These results were found to be consistent with deep-inelastic scattering world data and with the prediction of the constituent quark model but at odds with the perturbative quantum chromodynamics predictions at large x.