Gauge invariant descriptions of gluon polarizations

Abstract

We propose methods to construct gauge invariant decompositions of the nucleon spin, particularly gauge invariant descriptions of the gluon polarization. We show that gauge invariant decompositions of the nucleon spin can be derived naturally from the conserved current of a generalized Lorentz transformation by the Noether theorem. We propose a gauge invariant extension of the Chern-Simons current as a possible description of the gluon spin, and we also examine the problem of gauge dependence of this extended Chern-Simons current.