Transversity: theory and phenomenology

Abstract

The distribution of transversely polarized quarks inside a transversely polarized nucleon, known as transversity, encodes a basic piece of information on the nucleon structure, sharing the same status with the more familiar unpolarized and helicity distributions. I will review its properties and discuss different ways to access it, with highlights and limitations. Recent phenomenological extractions and perspectives are also presented.

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures. Invited talk delivered at the "International Workshop on Diffraction in High-Energy Physics" (DIFFRACTION 2012), Sept. 10-15, 2012, Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote, Canary Islands (Spain); to appear in "AIP Conference Proceedings"