First Extraction of Transversity from a Global Analysis of Electron-Proton and Proton-Proton Data

TL;DR

This paper reports the first global extraction of the transversity distribution in nucleons using combined data from deep-inelastic scattering and proton-proton collisions, advancing understanding of nucleon spin structure.

Contribution

It introduces a novel global analysis method for extracting transversity, utilizing di-hadron fragmentation functions from electron-positron data, which is a first in the field.

Findings

First extraction of transversity distribution from combined data

Demonstrates the feasibility of global analysis for chiral-odd distributions

Provides insights relevant for new physics searches in low-energy experiments

Abstract

We present the first extraction of the transversity distribution in the framework of collinear factorization based on the global analysis of pion-pair production in deep-inelastic scattering off transversely polarized targets and in proton-proton collisions with one transversely polarized proton. The extraction relies on the knowledge of di-hadron fragmentation functions, which are taken from the analysis of electron-positron annihilation data. For the first time, the chiral-odd transversity is extracted from a global analysis similar to what is usually done for the chiral-even spin-averaged and helicity distributions. The knowledge of transversity is important for, among other things, detecting possible signals of new physics in high-precision low-energy experiments.