NUCLEON SPIN IN QCD: OLD CRISIS AND NEW RESOLUTION

Abstract

We clarify the on-going confusion on the long-standing gauge invariance problem of the nucleon spin decomposition to the spin and angular momentum of quarks and gluons. We provide two gauge-invariant decompositions of nucleon spin which have different physical meanings, using the gauge independent Abelian decomposition. The first one is based on the assumption that all (binding and valence) gluons contribute to the nucleon spin, but the second one is based on the assumption that only the binding gluons (and the quarks) contribute to it.