No Arabic abstract
The COMPASS Collaboration at CERN has measured the transverse spin azimuthal asymmetry of charged hadrons produced in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering using a 160 GeV positive muon beam and a transversely polarised NH_3 target. The Sivers asymmetry of the proton has been extracted in the Bjorken x range 0.003<x<0.7. The new measurements have small statistical and systematic uncertainties of a few percent and confirm with considerably better accuracy the previous COMPASS measurement. The Sivers asymmetry is found to be compatible with zero for negative hadrons and positive for positive hadrons, a clear indication of a spin-orbit coupling of quarks in a transversely polarised proton. As compared to measurements at lower energy, a smaller Sivers asymmetry for positive hadrons is found in the region x > 0.03. The asymmetry is different from zero and positive also in the low x region, where sea-quarks dominate. The kinematic dependence of the asymmetry has also been investigated and results are given for various intervals of hadron and virtual photon fractional energy. In contrast to the case of the Collins asymmetry, the results on the Sivers asymmetry suggest a strong dependence on the four-momentum transfer to the nucleon, in agreement with the most recent calculations.
The COMPASS Collaboration at CERN has measured the transverse spin azimuthal asymmetry of charged hadrons produced in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering using a 160 GeV positive muon beam and a transversely polarised NH_3 target. The Collins asymmetry of the proton was extracted in the Bjorken x range 0.003<x<0.7. These new measurements confirm with higher accuracy previous measurements from the COMPASS and HERMES collaborations, which exhibit a definite effect in the valence quark region. The asymmetries for negative and positive hadrons are similar in magnitude and opposite in sign. They are compatible with model calculations in which the u-quark transversity is opposite in sign and somewhat larger than the d-quark transversity distribution function. The asymmetry is extracted as a function of Bjorken $x$, the relative hadron energy $z$ and the hadron transverse momentum p_T^h. The high statistics and quality of the data also allow for more detailed investigations of the dependence on the kinematic variables. These studies confirm the leading-twist nature of the Collins asymmetry.
We present estimates of transverse single-spin asymmetry in prompt photon production in the scattering of low virtuality photons off a polarized proton target and discuss the possibility of using this as a probe to get information about the gluon Sivers function (GSF). Using a generalized parton model (GPM) framework, we estimate the asymmetries at electron-ion collider energy ($sqrt{s}$ =140 GeV) taking into account both direct and resolved photon processes and find that the dominant contribution, up to $10%$, comes from quark Sivers function (QSF) while the contribution from GSF is found to be up to $2%$. However, upon taking into account the effects of the process-dependent initial and final state interactions through the color-gauge invariant generalized parton model approach we find that the situation is significantly changed, with near zero contributions from the QSFs and up to a $1%$ level contribution from the textit{f}-type GSF. Our results indicate that this process may be useful for distinguishing between GPM and color-gauge invariant generalized parton models and can be used as a good probe of textit{f}-type GSF.
Hadron leptoproduction in Semi-Inclusive measurements of Deep-Inelastic Scattering (SIDIS) on unpolarised nucleons allows one to get information on the intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks in a nucleon and on the Boer-Mulders function through the measurement of azimuthal modulations in the cross section. These modulations were recently measured by the HERMES experiment at DESY on proton and deuteron targets, and by the COMPASS experiment using the CERN SPS muon beam and a $^6$LiD target. In both cases, the amplitudes of the $cosphi_h$ and $cos 2phi_h$ modulations show strong kinematic dependences for both positive and negative hadrons. It has been known since some time that the measured final-state hadrons in those SIDIS experiments receive a contribution from exclusive diffractive production of vector mesons, particularly important at large values of $z$, the fraction of the virtual photon energy carried by the hadron. In previous measurements of azimuthal asymmetries this contribution was not taken into account, because it was not known that it could distort the azimuthal modulations. Presently, a method to evaluate the contribution of the exclusive reactions to the azimuthal asymmetries measured by COMPASS has been developed. The subtraction of this contribution results in a better understanding of the kinematic effects, and the remaining non-zero $cos 2phi_h$ modulation gives indication for a non-zero Boer-Mulders effect.
The measurements of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries of identified hadrons produced in deep-inelastic scattering of 160 GeV/c muons on a transversely polarised 6LiD target at COMPASS are presented. The results for charged pions and charged and neutral kaons correspond to all data available, which were collected from 2002 to 2004. For all final state particles both the Collins and Sivers asymmetries turn out to be small, compatible with zero within the statistical errors, in line with the previously published results for not identified charged hadrons, and with the expected cancellation between the u- and d-quark contributions.
Exclusive production of $rho^0$ mesons was studied at the COMPASS experiment by scattering 160 GeV/$c$ muons off transversely polarised protons. Five single-spin and three double-spin azimuthal asymmetries were measured as a function of $Q^2$, $x_{Bj}$, or $p_{T}^{2}$. The $sin phi_S$ asymmetry is found to be $-0.019 pm 0.008(stat.) pm 0.003(syst.)$. All other asymmetries are also found to be of small magnitude and consistent with zero within experimental uncertainties. Very recent calculations using a GPD-based model agree well with the present results. The data is interpreted as evidence for the existence of chiral-odd, transverse generalized parton distributions.