The Spin Structure of the Proton in a Non-relativistic Quark Model

Abstract

The spin structure of the proton is investigated in the framework of an extended quark potential model which in addition to the conventional $3q$--structure also takes into account $(3q)(q\bar q)$--admixtures in the proton wave function. For reasons of parity such admixtures contain an odd orbital angular momentum thus allowing the proton spin to be shared among quark spins and orbital angular momenta. We show that only certain admixtures are suited for a significant reduction of the quark spin content of the proton as suggested by the EMC--result. Within a Hamiltonian model quark spin contributions to the proton spin down to $0.5$ can be reproduced easily.