Accessing trigluon correlations in the nucleon via the single spin asymmetry in open charm production

Journal Article · Mon Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.78.114013· OSTI ID:21251001

Zhongbo, Kang; Jianwei, Qiu ^[1]; Vogelsang, Werner ^[2]; Feng, Yuan ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 (United States)
2. Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973 (United States)
3. Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

We calculate the single transverse-spin asymmetry for open charm production in pp collisions within the QCD collinear factorization approach. We include contributions from both twist-three quark-gluon and trigluon correlation functions. We find that the quark-gluon correlation functions alone generate only a very small asymmetry for open charm production in the kinematic region of current interest at RHIC, so that the observation of any significant single-spin asymmetry would be a clear indication of the presence of trigluon correlations inside a polarized proton. We furthermore demonstrate that the trigluon contribution could be very different for the production of D and D mesons. These features make the single-spin asymmetry in open charm production in polarized pp collisions at RHIC an excellent probe of trigluon correlation functions.

• OSTI ID: 21251001
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 78; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ASYMMETRY
BROOKHAVEN RHIC
CHARM PARTICLES
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CORRELATION FUNCTIONS
D MESONS
FACTORIZATION
GLUONS
PARTICLE PRODUCTION
PROTON-PROTON INTERACTIONS
PROTONS
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUARK-GLUON INTERACTIONS
QUARKS
SPIN