Measurement of the longitudinal spin asymmetries for weak boson production in proton-proton collisions at $sqrt{s}$ = 510 GeV


Abstract in English

We report new STAR measurements of the single-spin asymmetries $A_L$ for $W^+$ and $W^-$ bosons produced in polarized proton--proton collisions at $sqrt{s}$ = 510 GeV as a function of the decay-positron and decay-electron pseudorapidity. The data were obtained in 2013 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 250 pb$^{-1}$. The results are combined with previous results obtained with 86 pb$^{-1}$. A comparison with theoretical expectations based on polarized lepton-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering and prior polarized proton--proton data suggests a difference between the $bar{u}$ and $bar{d}$ quark helicity distributions for $0.05 < x < 0.25$. In addition, we report new results for the double-spin asymmetries $A_{LL}$ for $W^pm$, as well as $A_L$ for $Z/gamma^*$ production and subsequent decay into electron--positron pairs.

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