Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to spin-dependent hadron-pair photoproduction

TL;DR

This paper calculates next-to-leading order QCD corrections to spin-dependent hadron-pair photoproduction, providing analytical results and analyzing their impact on gluon polarization measurements in spin physics experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a largely analytical calculation of NLO QCD corrections for spin-dependent hadron-pair photoproduction, aiding gluon polarization extraction.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect cross section predictions.

K-factors and scale dependence are analyzed.

Results are relevant for future spin-dependent scattering experiments.

Abstract

We compute the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the ``direct'' part of the spin-dependent cross section for hadron-pair photoproduction. The calculation is performed using largely analytical methods. We present a brief phenomenological study of our results focussing on the $K$-factors and scale dependence of the next-to-leading order cross sections. This process is relevant for the extraction of the gluon polarization in present and future spin-dependent lepton-nucleon scattering experiments.