Polarized gluon distribution in the proton from holographic light-front QCD

Abstract

We obtain the gluon parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the proton within the extended light-front holographic QCD framework, where the proton couples with the spin-two Pomeron in Anti-de Sitter space, together with constraints imposed by the Veneziano model. The gluon helicity asymmetry, after satisfying the perturbative QCD constraints at small and large longitudinal momentum regions, agrees with existing experimental measurements. The polarized gluon distribution is consistent with global analyses. We predict the gluon helicity contribution to the proton spin, $\Delta G=0.221^{+0.056}_{-0.044}$, close to the recent analysis with updated data sets and PHENIX measurement and the lattice QCD simulations. We subsequently present the unpolarized and polarized gluon generalized parton distributions in the proton.