The spin-dependent structure function of the proton g1p and a test of the Bjorken sum rule

The inclusive double-spin asymmetry, A 1 p , has been measured at COMPASS in deep-inelastic polarised muon scattering off a large polarised NH3 target. The data, collected in the year 2007, cover the range Q 2 > 1 ( GeV / c ) 2 , 0.004 x 0.7 and improve the statistical precision of g 1 p ( x ) by a factor of two in the region x 0.02 . The new proton asymmetries are combined with those previously published for the deuteron to extract the non-singlet spin-dependent structure function g 1 NS ( x , Q 2 ) . The isovector quark density, Δ q 3 ( x , Q 2 ) , is evaluated from a NLO QCD fit of g 1 NS . The first moment of Δ q 3 is in good agreement with the value predicted by the Bjorken sum rule and corresponds to a ratio of the axial and vector coupling constants | g A / g V | = 1.28 ± 0.07 ( stat . ) ± 0.10 ( syst. ) .