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

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 $\cos (2\varphi +{\varphi }_a-{\varphi }_b)$ 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 $\sin (3{\varphi }_h-{\varphi }_S)$ asymmetry in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering process at HERMES, COMPASS, and JLab kinematics. We conclude that the $\cos (2\varphi +{\varphi }_a-{\varphi }_b)$ asymmetry in the PAX experiment can probe the new physical quantity of the pretzelosity distribution.

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures, final version in journal publication