Probing pretzelosity $h^{\perp}_{1T}$ via the polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process is highly effective for probing the pretzelosity distribution, a key transverse-momentum-dependent parton distribution, through specific measurable asymmetries.

Contribution

It provides theoretical predictions for asymmetries in the polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process, highlighting its potential to explore pretzelosity, which is less accessible in other experiments.

Findings

Predicted asymmetry is significantly larger than in SIDIS processes.

The $ ext{cos}(2 heta + heta_a - heta_b)$ asymmetry can effectively probe pretzelosity.

Results suggest the PAX experiment can access new physical insights into nucleon structure.

Abstract

We show that the polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process is ideal to probe the pretzelosity distribution ($h_{1T}^\perp$), which is one of the new transverse-momentum-dependent parton distributions of the nucleon. We present predictions of the $\cos(2\phi + \phi_a - \phi_b)$ asymmetry in the transversely polarized proton-antiproton Drell-Yan process at PAX kinematics and find that the results are significantly larger compared with those of the $\sin(3\phi_h - \phi_S)$ asymmetry in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering process at HERMES, COMPASS, and JLab kinematics. We conclude that the $\cos(2\phi + \phi_a - \phi_b)$ asymmetry in the PAX experiment can probe the new physical quantity of the pretzelosity distribution.