Study of deep inelastic scattering of polarized electrons off polarized deuterons

This thesis describes a 29GeV electron - nucleon scattering experiment carried out at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Highly polarized electrons are scattered off a polarized ND{sub 3} target. Scattered electrons are detected by two spectrometers located in End Station A (ESA) at angles of 4.5{degrees} and 7{degrees} with respect to the beam axis. We have measured the spin structure function g{sub 1} of deuteron over the range of 0.029 < x < 0.8 and 1. 0 < Q{sup 2} < 12.0(GeV/c){sup 2}. This integral indicates a discrepancy of more than three standard deviations from the prediction of the Ellis-Jaffe sum rule, 0.068{+-}0.005 at Q{sup 2} = 3.0(GeV/c){sup 2} while our result of g{sub 1}{sup d} in good agreement with SMC results. Combined with g{sub 1} of the proton, the measurement of {integral}{sub 0}{sup 1}(g{sub 1}{sup d}-g{sub 1}{sup n}) is 0.169{+-}0.008. We also obtained the strong coupling constant at Q{sup 2} = 3.0(GeV/c){sup 2} to be 0.417{sub -0.110}{sup +0.086}, using the power correction for the sum rule up to third order of {alpha}{sub s}. This result is in agreement with the strong coupling constant {alpha}{sub s}(Q{sup 2}) = 3.0(GeV/c{sup 2}) obtained from various experiments. Using our deuteron results and the axial vector couplings of hyperon decays, the total quark polarization along the nucleon spin is found to be 0.286{+-}.055, implying that quarks carry only 30% of the nucleon spin. The strange sea quark polarization is also determined to be -0.101 {+-} .023. These measurements are in agreement with other experiments and provide the world`s most precise measurement of these quark polarizations. 80 refs., 151 figs., 23 tabs