Probing the Spin Structure of the Proton Using Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions and the Production of W Bosons
- Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States)
This thesis discusses the process of extracting the longitudinal asymmetry, A$$W±\atop{L}$$ describing W → μ production in forward kinematic regimes. This asymmetry is used to constrain our understanding of the polarized parton distribution functions characterizing $$\bar{u}$$ and $$\bar{d}$$ sea quarks in the proton. This asymmetry will be used to constrain the overall contribution of the sea-quarks to the total proton spin. The asymmetry is evaluated over the pseudorapidity range of the PHENIX Muon Arms, 2.1 < |η| 2.6, for longitudinally polarized proton-proton collisions at 510 GeV √s. In particular, I will discuss the statistical methods used to characterize real muonic W decays and the various background processes is presented, including a discussion of likelihood event selection and the Extended Unbinned Maximum Likelihood t. These statistical methods serve estimate the yields of W muonic decays, which are used to calculate the longitudinal asymmetry.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC00112704
- OSTI ID:
- 1338472
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-113351-2016-TH; TRN: US1701432
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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