We study the transverse single-spin asymmetry for single-hadron production in proton-proton collisions within the framework of collinear twist-3 factorization in Quantum Chromodynamics. By taking into account the contribution due to parton fragmentat
ion we obtain a very good description of all high transverse-momentum data for neutral and charged pion production from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Our study may provide the crucial step towards a final solution to the longstanding problem of what causes transverse single-spin asymmetries in hadronic collisions within Quantum Chromodynamics. We show for the first time that it is possible to simultaneously describe spin/azimuthal asymmetries in proton-proton collisions, semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering, and electron-positron annihilation by using collinear twist-3 factorization in the first process along with transverse momentum dependent functions extracted from the latter two reactions.
Transverse single-spin asymmetries in inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering can be generated through multiphoton exchange between the leptonic and the hadronic part of the process. Here we consider the two-photon exchange, and mainly foc
us on the transverse target spin asymmetry. In particular, we investigate the case where two photons couple to different quarks. Such a contribution involves a quark-photon-quark correlator in the nucleon, which has a (model-dependent) relation to the Efremov-Teryaev-Qiu-Sterman quark-gluon-quark correlator T_F. Using different parametrizations for T_F we compute the transverse target spin asymmetries for both a proton and a neutron target and compare the results to recent experimental data. In addition, potential implications for our general understanding of single-spin asymmetries in hard scattering processes are discussed.
The violation of the so-called Lorentz invariance relations between parton distribution functions is considered in a model independent way. It is shown that these relations are not violated in a generalized Wandzura-Wilczek approximation, indicating that numerically their violation may be small.
