First extraction of transversity from data on lepton-hadron scattering and hadronic collisions

TL;DR

This paper reports the first global extraction of the transversity distribution function from combined lepton-hadron scattering and proton-proton collision data, utilizing di-hadron fragmentation functions from electron-positron annihilation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel global analysis method to extract transversity, a chiral-odd distribution, from diverse experimental data sets for the first time.

Findings

First extraction of transversity from combined data

Demonstrates the feasibility of global analysis for chiral-odd distributions

Provides new insights into nucleon spin structure

Abstract

We present the first extraction of the transversity distribution based on the global analysis of pion-pair production in deep-inelastic scattering 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 among other things for detecting possible signals of new physics in high-precision low-energy experiments.