Viewing the Proton through “Color” Filters

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Abstract
While the form factors and parton distributions provide separately the shape of the proton in coordinate and momentum spaces, a more powerful imaging of the proton structure can be obtained through phase-space distributions. Here we introduce the Wigner-type quark and gluon distributions which depict a full-3D proton at every fixed light-cone momentum, like what is seen through momentum (“color”) filters. After appropriate phase-space reductions, the Wigner distributions are related to the generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and transverse-momentum dependent parton distributions, which are measurable in high-energy experiments. The new interpretation of GPDs provides a classical way to visualize the orbital motion of the quarks, which is known to be the key to the spin and magnetic moment of the proton.