Transverse Double-Spin Asymmetries for Muon Pair Production in pp-Collisions

TL;DR

This paper calculates the rapidity dependence of transverse double-spin asymmetry in the Drell-Yan process at next-to-leading order, providing predictions for collider and fixed-target experiments while considering detector acceptance effects.

Contribution

It introduces a next-to-leading order calculation of the asymmetry using transversity distributions derived from the Soffer inequality, with detailed analysis of experimental acceptance impacts.

Findings

Predicted asymmetries for RHIC and HERA-N experiments.

Impact of detector muon acceptance on asymmetry measurements.

Transversity distributions constrained by the Soffer inequality.

Abstract

We calculate the rapidity dependence of the transverse double-spin asymmetry for the Drell-Yan process to next-to-leading order in the strong coupling. Input transversity distributions are obtained by saturating the Soffer inequality at a low hadronic mass scale. Results for the polarized BNL-RHIC proton-proton collider and the proposed HERA-N fixed-target experiment are presented, and the influence of the limited muon acceptance of the detectors on measurements of the asymmetry is studied in detail.