The Q-dependence of the generalised Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integral for the deuteron, proton and neutron

The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule connects the anomalous contribution to the magnetic moment of the target nucleus with an energy-weighted integral of the difference of the helicity-dependent photoabsorption cross sections. Originally conceived for real photons, the GDH integral can be generalised to the case of photons with virtuality Q2. For spin-1/2 targets such as the nucleon, it then represents the non-perturbative limit of the first moment \(\Gamma_1\) of the spin structure function g1(x,Q2) in deep inelastic scattering (DIS). The data collected by HERMES with a deuterium target are presented together with a re-analysis of previous measurements on the proton. This provides an unprecedented and complete measurement of the generalised GDH integral for photon-virtuality ranging over 1.2