https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01558-w
Review
Experimental study of tensor structure function of deuteron
1
Jefferson Lab, 12000 Jefferson Ave, 23606, Newport News, VA, USA
2
University of Pavia, Via Bassi 6, I-27100, Pavia, Italy
3
University of New Hampshire, 9 Library Way, 03824, Durham, NH, USA
Received:
1
October
2024
Accepted:
4
April
2025
Published online:
18
April
2025
The deuteron is the lightest spin-1 nucleus, consisting of a weakly bound system of two spin-
nucleons. One intriguing characteristic of the deuteron is the tensor polarized structure, which cannot be naively constructed combining the proton and neutron structure. The tensor structure of the deuteron provides unique insights into the quarks and gluons distributions and their dynamics within the nucleus. It can be studied experimentally through inclusive and semi-inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) of electrons on tensor polarized deuterons. One-dimensional (longitudinal-momentum-dependent) tensor structure functions are extracted from the inclusive DIS, whereas three-dimensional with additional transverse-momentum-dependent tensor structure functions are extracted from the semi-inclusive DIS. Experimentally, achieving high tensor polarization for such measurements has been a challenge. Significant progress has recently been made in enhancing the tensor polarization for polarized deuteron target, opening up a new window for experimental studies of the deuteron tensor structure. In this article, we discuss the tensor structure functions of the deuteron and the experimental schemes to extract these functions at Jefferson Lab, highlighting the potential measurements of the transverse-momentum-dependent tensor structure functions.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
