Polarized Intrinsic Charm as a Possible Solution to the Proton Spin Problem

Abstract

We argue that a large fraction of the proton spin comes from a contribution due to a nonperturbative intrinsic charm component of the proton. An account of this contribution removes an apparent contradiction between the data and exact Kühn-Zakharov low energy theorem. On the other hand, we show that a large intrinsic charm spin component of the proton is implied by recent CLEO data on B -> η' decays. We argue that the proton spin and B -> η' data are manifestations of the same physics with full agreement between two different estimates of the intrinsic charm component of the proton spin. Our results suggest an explanation of the polarized DIS data and have profound consequences for future experiments on charm production off a polarized proton. A microscopic origin of the effect is related to strong well-localized gluon fluctuations (instantons) where the mass of the charmed quark is not a suppression factor at all, as was naively expected earlier.