Experimental Evidence for Partonic Orbital Angular Momentum at RHIC

Although one might naively anticipate that the proton, being the lowest baryonic energy state, would be in a L = 0 state, the current theoretical understanding is that it must carry orbital angular momentum in order, for example, to have a non-zero anomalous magnetic moment. I will review the experimental evidence linked theoretically to orbital angular momentum of the proton's constituents from the RHIC experiments and summarize by presenting a challenge to the theory community--to develop a consistent framework which can explain the spin polarization asymmetries seen at RHIC and elsewhere, and give insight to the partonic wave-functions including orbital angular momentum.