Nucleon spin structure studies at COMPASS

One of the main goal of the COMPASS experiment at CERN is the study of the spin structure of the nucleon in DIS, by scattering 160 GeV polarized muon beam on a longitudinally (or transversely) polarized 6LiD target. Besides the scattered muon, the particles produced in the deep inelastic scattering are detected by a two stage magnetic spectrometer equipped with state of the art tracking and particle ID detectors. The emphasis of COMPASS muon program is the direct determination of the gluon polarization ΔG/G, accessed via asymmetries involving photon-gluon fusion mechanism (PGF). Both open charm production (detecting D0,s), as well as production of high ρT hadron pairs are used to tag PGF. Preliminary results for ΔG/G based on the analysis of 2002 and 2003 data are shown. In addition, improved measurement of the deuteron structure function g1d at small x, as well as studies of transverse distribution functions in the deuteron by measuring Collins and Sivers azimuthal asymmetries, are reported. (author)