Longitudinal parity-violating asymmetry in hadronic decays of weak bosons in polarized proton collisions.
We investigate the possible measurement of parity-violating spin asymmetries in jet pair production in proton-proton collisions at the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), with the goal to constrain longitudinally polarized quark and antiquark distribution functions. A measurable asymmetry could be observed in the vicinity of the massive weak W boson resonance, where the parity-violating signal appears above the parity-conserving background and is enhanced by interference of the strong and electroweak production amplitudes. We discuss the potential for such measurements, perhaps the first opportunity to measure a parity-violating asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at RHIC. Sensitivity of this measurement to the polarization of down-type antiquarks is demonstrated.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); Lightner-Sams Foundation
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 953461
- Report Number(s):
- ANL-HEP-PR-08-59; TRN: US0902773
- Journal Information:
- Phys. Rev. D, Vol. 78, Issue Dec. 2008; ISSN 1550-7998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- ENGLISH
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