From Ji to Jaffe-Manohar orbital angular momentum in Lattice QCD using a direct derivative method

A lattice QCD approach to quark orbital angular momentum in the proton based on generalized transverse momentum-dependent parton distributions (GTMDs) is enhanced methodologically by incorporating a direct derivative technique. This improvement removes a significant numerical bias that had been seen to afflict results of a previous study. In particular, the value obtained for Ji quark orbital angular momentum is reconciled with the one obtained independently via Ji’s sum rule, validating the GMTD approach. Since GTMDs simultaneously contain information about the quark impact parameter and transverse momentum, they permit a direct evaluation of the cross product of the latter. They are defined through proton matrix elements of a quark bilocal operator containing a Wilson line; the choice in Wilson line path allows one to continuously interpolate from Ji to Jaffe-Manohar quark orbital angular momentum. The latter is seen to be significantly enhanced in magnitude compared to Ji quark orbital angular momentum, confirming previous results.