Role of gluons and the quark sea in the proton spin

Abstract

The real, interacting elementary particle always consists of a ‘bare’ particle and a cloud of virtual particles mediating a self-interaction and/or the bond inside a composite object. In this letter we discuss the question of spin content of the virtual cloud in two different cases: electron and quark. Further, the quark spin is discussed in the context of proton spin, which is generated by the interplay of quarks and virtual gluons. We present a general constraint on the gluon contribution and make a comparison with the experimental data.