Transversity

Abstract

Transversity distribution, together with the unpolarized and the helicity distributions, represents a basic piece of information on the internal structure of nucleons. Its peculiar property of being a chiral-odd quantity implies that it can be accessed only in combination with another chiral-odd partner, making it much harder to measure. In this talk I will review its properties and describe the most relevant and feasible ways to access it. Recent phenomenological extractions, their highlights and limitations, as well as perspectives are discussed.

Comments: 5 pages, 2 figures. Invited talk presented at CIPANP 2012, St. Petersburg, Florida (USA), May 29 - June 3, 2012