A new twist-3 analysis of the single transverse-spin asymmetry for pion and kaon production at RHIC

Abstract

We present a new analysis for the single-transverse spin asymmetry (SSA) for the inclusive pion and kaon productions in the proton-proton collisions measured at RHIC. The framework we use is the collinear factorization in which SSA appears as a twist-3 observable resulting from the multiparton correlations in the hadrons. As a relevant multiparton correlation, we include all the contributions associated with the quark-gluon correlation functions in the transversely polarized proton, i.e., those from the soft-gluon-pole (SGP) and the soft-fermion-pole (SFP). We have found that the SGP contribution alone is insufficient to describe the observed RHIC A_N data and the inclusion of the SFP contribution plays an important role for the improved description of the data. In particular, P_T-dependence of A_N and A_N for K^- have been well described in our new analysis.

Comments: To appear in the proceedings of 19th International Spin Physics Symposium (SPIN 2010), Juelich, Germany, 27 Sep - 2 Oct, 2010