Virtual photon asymmetry for confined, interacting Dirac particles with spin symmetry

Abstract

We study the Bjorken x dependence of the virtual photon spin asymmetry in polarized deep inelastic scattering of electrons from hadrons. We use an exactly solved relativistic potential model of the hadron, treating the constituents as independent massless Dirac particles bound to an infinitely massive force center. The potential is chosen to have spin symmetry and a linear radial dependence with spherical symmetry. The effect of interactions of the struck constituent with the remainder of the target on the longitudinal photon asymmetry is demonstrated. In particular, the small-x suppression of the photon asymmetry observed in polarized deep inelastic scattering from the proton is shown to be a consequence of these interactions. The effect of p--wave components of the Dirac wave function, long known to give an important contribution to the spin of hadrons, is explicitly demonstrated through their interference with the s--wave term.