The Proton Gluon Distribution from the Color Dipole Picture

Abstract

Employing the representation of the experimental data on deep inelastic electron-proton scattering (DIS) in the color-dipole picture (CDP), we determine the gluon distribution of the proton at small Bjorken $x$. At sufficiently large momentum transfer, $Q^2$, the extracted gluon distribution fulfills the standard evolution equation for the proton structure function. For low values of $Q^2$, e.g. for $Q^2 = 1.9 {\rm GeV}^2$, the evolution equation for the proton structure function is violated. The standard procedure of adopting a low-$Q^2$ starting scale for the extraction of the gluon density is questionable and requires further investigations.