Consistent Analysis of the Spin Content of the Nucleon

The recent measurements of lepton nucleon scattering with polarised neutron and deuteron targets are analysed together with the previous polarised proton data in a mutually consistent way. The detailed $x$-dependence of the polarisation asymmetry in the valence region is shown to be in agreement with historical predictions based on quark models. The Bjorken sum rule is shown to be confirmed at the $1\sigma$ level and estimates of the spin content of the nucleon $\Delta q$ are extracted. While the average value of $\Delta q$ from the three experiments comes out to be $0.41\pm0.05$ (to be compared with the naive quark model theoretical expectation of 0.58) this experimental average value is more than one standard deviation from the value obtained from any individual experiment.This inconsistency can be overcome by allowing arbitrary higher twist contributions but the resulting precision is poor, $\Delta q = 0.38\pm 0.48$.