Anti-Hyperon polarization in high energy pp collisions with polarized beams

TL;DR

This paper investigates the polarization of anti-hyperons in high-energy polarized proton-proton collisions, highlighting their sensitivity to the polarized sea quark distributions within the nucleon.

Contribution

It extends previous studies by analyzing anti-hyperon polarization with various polarized parton density parametrizations and fragmentation models.

Findings

Xi_bar0 and Xi_bar+ polarizations are sensitive to the polarized anti-strange sea.

Sigma_bar- and Sigma_bar+ polarizations are sensitive to light sea quark polarizations and asymmetry.

Polarizations can serve as probes for the nucleon's polarized sea quark distributions.

Abstract

We study the longitudinal polarization of the Sigma_bar and Xi_bar anti-hyperons in polarized high energy pp collisions at large transverse momenta, extending a recent study for the Lambda_bar anti-hyperon. We make predictions by using different parametrizations of the polarized parton densities and models for the polarized fragmentation functions. Similar to the Lambda_bar polarization, the Xi_bar0 and Xi_bar+ polarizations are found to be sensitive to the polarized anti-strange sea in the nucleon. The Sigma_bar- and Sigma_bar+ polarizations show sensitivity to the light sea quark polarizations, \Delta \bar u(x) and \Delta \bar d(x), and their asymmetry.