Gluon orbital angular momentum at small-$x$

Abstract

We present a general analysis of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) distribution of gluons $L_g(x)$ inside the nucleon with particular emphasis on the small-$x$ region. We derive a novel operator representation of $L_g(x)$ in terms of Wilson lines and argue that it is approximately proportional to the gluon helicity distribution $L_g(x)\approx -2\Delta G(x)$ at small-$x$. We also compute longitudinal single spin asymmetry in exclusive diffractive dijet production in lepton-nucleon scattering in the next-to-eikonal approximation and show that the asymmetry is a direct probe of the gluon helicity/OAM distribution as well as the QCD odderon exchange.

Comments: 22 pages. v2 significantly expands the previous version with all the details of derivation as well as a number of new results and discussions. The title and abstract are changed, and an author is added