The High-Z hydrogen-like atom: a model for polarized structure functions

Abstract

The Dirac equation offers a precise analytical description of relativistic two-particle bound states, when one of the constituent is very heavy and radiative corrections are neglected. Looking at the high-Z hydrogen-like atom in the infinite momentum frame and treating the electron as a "parton", various properties usually attributed to the quark distributions in the nucleon are tested, in particular: Bj{\o}rken scaling; charge, helicity, transversity and momentum sum rules; existence of the parton sea; Soffer inequality; correlation between spin and transverse momentum (Sivers and Boer-Mulders effects); transverse displacement of the center-of-charge and its connection with the magnetic moment. Deep inelastic experiments with photon or positron beams at MeV energies, analogous to DIS or Drell-Yan reactions, are considered.