Future Investigations of the Flavor Dependence of Sea Quark Helicities at STAR

TL;DR

This paper discusses future plans to investigate how different quark flavors contribute to the nucleon's sea quark helicities using polarized proton collisions at RHIC, complementing existing measurements.

Contribution

It introduces planned measurements of flavor-separated polarized quark distributions via W production at RHIC, including detector upgrades and expected sensitivities.

Findings

Anticipated ability to distinguish flavor-dependent sea quark helicities

Complementarity with semi-inclusive DIS measurements

Enhanced understanding of nucleon sea structure

Abstract

The flavor dependence of polarized and unpolarized quark distributions in the nucleon can lead to insights into the formation of the sea. Drell-Yan measurements have pointed to flavor asymmetries in the unpolarized distributions. Collisions at sqrt{s}=500 GeV with polarized protons at RHIC will soon allow investigations of the flavor separated polarized quark distributions via W production to complement measurements from semi-inclusive DIS. We report on STAR's current plans, tracking upgrade, and expected sensitivities.