A new measurement of the spin-dependent structure function $g_{1}(x)$ of the deuteron

Abstract We present a new measurement of the spin-dependent structure function g 1 d of the deuteron in deep inelastic scattering of 190 GeV polarised muons on polarised deuterons, in the kinematic range 0.003 x 2 Q 2 2 . This structure function is found to be negative at small x . The first moment Γ 1 d =∫ 0 1 g 1 d d x evaluated at Q 0 2 = 10 GeV 2 is 0.034 ± 0.009 (stat.) ± 0.006 (syst.). This value is below the Ellis-Jaffe sum rule prediction by three standard deviations. Using our earlier determination of Γ 1 p , we obtain Γ 1 p − Γ 1 n = 0.199 ± 0.038 which agrees with the Bjorken sum rule.