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Proton isovector helicity PDF at NNLO and the twist-3 moment d˜2 from lattice QCD at physical quark masses

Xiang Gao1,*, Andrew D. Hanlon2, Swagato Mukherjee1, Peter Petreczky1, Hai-Tao Shu3, Fei Yao1, Rui Zhang4,†, and Yong Zhao5

  • *Contact author: xgao@bnl.gov
  • †Contact author: rzhang93@mit.edu

Phys. Rev. D 114, 014505 – Published 7 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/kb88-xmzh

Abstract

We present a lattice quantum chromodynamics calculation of the x-dependent isovector quark helicity parton distribution function (PDF) of the proton in the large momentum effective theory (LaMET) framework. Through operator product expansion (OPE) we also extract the d˜2 moment of the twist-3 PDF gT(x) for the first time in the MS¯ scheme, which is proportional to the average color Lorentz force experienced by the quark in the proton. This calculation is performed on a lattice of spacing a=0.076  fm at physical quark masses. The quasi-PDF matrix elements are measured in proton states boosted to momenta Pz={0,0.25,1.02,1.53}  GeV. We first extract the lowest few helicity PDF moments from the renormalization-group (RG) invariant ratios of the matrix elements with OPE. Combined with the matrix elements relevant for gT(x), we obtain d˜2u−d(2  GeV)=0.0024(46) at next-to-leading order in MS¯. Then, the helicity quasi-PDF matrix elements are renormalized in the hybrid scheme with linear renormalon resummation and Fourier transformed to the x-space after an asymptotic extrapolation. The quasi-PDF is perturbatively matched to the MS¯ PDF with RG and threshold resummations at next-to-leading power and next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracies. After resummations, we determine the PDF in the region x∈[0.25,0.75]. The end-point regions are then parametrized, combined with the LaMET prediction at moderate x, and fitted to the short-distance matrix elements in coordinate space.

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