The light-front gauge-invariant energy-momentum tensor

Abstract

We provide for the first time a complete parametrization for the matrix elements of the generic asymmetric, non-local and gauge-invariant canonical energy-momentum tensor, generalizing therefore former works on the symmetric, local and gauge-invariant kinetic energy-momentum tensor also known as the Belinfante-Rosenfeld energy-momentum tensor. We discuss in detail the various constraints imposed by non-locality, linear and angular momentum conservation. We also derive the relations with two-parton generalized and transverse-momentum dependent distributions, clarifying what can be learned from the latter. In particular, we show explicitly that two-parton transverse-momentum dependent distributions cannot provide any model-independent information about the parton orbital angular momentum. On the way, we recover the Burkardt sum rule and obtain similar new sum rules for higher-twist distributions.