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Gluon-Spin Contribution to the Proton Spin from the Double-Helicity Asymmetry in Inclusive pi{sup 0} Production in Polarized p+p Collisions at sq root(s)=200 GeV

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
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  1. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309 (United States)
  2. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Moscow Region (Russian Federation)
  3. Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003-9337 (United States)
  4. Chemistry Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, SUNY, New York 11794-3400 (United States)
The double helicity asymmetry in neutral pion production for p{sub T}=1 to 12 GeV/c was measured with the PHENIX experiment to access the gluon-spin contribution, DELTAG, to the proton spin. Measured asymmetries are consistent with zero, and at a theory scale of mu{sup 2}=4 GeV{sup 2} a next to leading order QCD analysis gives DELTAG{sup [0.02,0.3]}=0.2, with a constraint of -0.7<DELTAG{sup [0.02,0.3]}<0.5 at DELTAchi{sup 2}=9 (approx3sigma) for the sampled gluon momentum fraction (x) range, 0.02 to 0.3. The results are obtained using predictions for the measured asymmetries generated from four representative fits to polarized deep inelastic scattering data. We also consider the dependence of the DELTAG constraint on the choice of the theoretical scale, a dominant uncertainty in these predictions.
OSTI ID:
21347016
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 103; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English