Dispersion relations and the spin polarizabilities of the nucleon

A forward dispersion calculation is implemented for the spin polarizabilities $\gamma_1, ... ,\gamma_4$ of the proton and the neutron. These polarizabilities are related to the spin structure of the nucleon at low energies and are structure-constants of the Compton scattering amplitude at ${\cal O}(\omega^3)$. In the absence of a direct experimental measurement of these quantities, a dispersion calculation serves the purpose of constraining the model building, and of comparing with recent calculations in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory.