Recent preliminary PHENIX data are consistent with a negative and sizable longitudinal double-spin asymmetry A_LL^pi for pi^0 production at moderate transverse momentum p_perp simeq 1 - 4 GeV and central rapidity. By means of a systematic investigation of the relevant degrees of freedom we show that the perturbative QCD framework at leading power in p_perp produces at best a very small negative asymmetry in this kinematic range.
The longitudinal double spin asymmetry A_LL in the reaction pp --> pi X has been measured at RHIC with extremely interesting consequences. If the gluon polarization in a proton were as big as needed to resolve the famous spin crisis then A_LL would be large and positive. Latest RHIC results indicate that A_LL is small and disfavour large positive values of the gluon polarization. We examine whether the soft mechanisms (Collins, Sivers, Boer-Mulders), essential for generating transverse single spin asymmetries, have any significant influence on A_LL, and whether they could alter the conclusion that the gluon polarization is necessarily small. It turns out that the contribution from these effects is essentially negligible.
Focusing on three-pion states with maximal isospin ($pi^+pi^+pi^+$), we present the first non-perturbative determination of an energy-dependent three-hadron scattering amplitude from first-principles QCD. The calculation combines finite-volume three-hadron energies, extracted using numerical lattice QCD, with a relativistic finite-volume formalism, required to interpret the results. To fully implement the latter, we also solve integral equations that relate an intermediate three-body K matrix to the physical three-hadron scattering amplitude. The resulting amplitude shows rich analytic structure and a complicated dependence on the two-pion invariant masses, represented here via Dalitz-like plots of the scattering rate.
We calculate the production cross-section and the transverse single-spin asymmetry for pion in $p^{uparrow}+pto pi^0 + X$. Our computation is based on existence of the instanton induced effective quark-gluon and quark-gluon-pion interactions with a strong spin dependency. In this framework we calculate the cross section without using fragmentation functions. We compare predictions of the model with data from RHIC. Our numerical results, based on the instanton liquid model for QCD vacuum, are in agreement with unpolarized cross section data. The asymmetry grows with the transverse momentum of pion $k_t$ in accordance with experimental observations. It reach value $sim 10%$ but at higher $k_t$ than experiment shows.
A qualitative understanding of the day-night asymmetry for solar neutrinos is provided. The greater night flux in nu_e is seen to be a consequence of the fact that the matter effect in the sun and that in the earth have the same sign. It is shown in the adiabatic approximation for the sun that for all values of the mixing angle theta_V between 0 and pi/2, the night flux of neutrinos is greater than the day flux. Only for small values of theta_V where the adiabatic approximation badly fails does the sign of the day-night asymmetry reverse.
A measurement of the rate for the wrong-sign decay D0 -> K+ pi- pi+ pi- relative to that for the right-sign decay D0 -> K- pi+ pi+ pi- is presented. Using 791 fb-1 of data collected with the Belle detector, we obtain a branching fraction ratio of R_WS = [0.324 +- 0.008 (stat) +- 0.007 (sys)]%. Multiplying this ratio by the world average value for the branching fraction B(D0 -> K- pi+ pi+ pi-) gives a branching fraction B(D0 -> K+ pi- pi+ pi-) = (2.61 +- 0.06 +0.09 -0.08) x 10-4.