DIQUARK CORRELATIONS IN THE PROTON

The colour-magnetic interaction of quantum chromodynamics with a smear ing function found from the fit to the rho - pi splitting is strong en ough to support a bound state of a singlet q (q) over bar pair. We exa mine the possibility that this interaction leads to short-range quark- quark correlations in light baryons thereby providing the dynamical me chanism for a quark-diquark picture of the proton. In particular, we s how that the correlation function of a singlet diquark in the proton i s strongly enhanced at the origin (compared to that for the triplet di quark) with the correlation radius r(0), a typical cut-off radius in t he spin interaction. The Fourier transform of the correlation function , which is related to the dependence on the momentum transfer of the s tructure functions in inclusive electron-proton scattering, may provid e quite fundamental information on the diquark structure of the proton .