The Beam Single Spin Asymmetry in Semi-inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering

Abstract

We study the beam single spin asymmetry in semi-inclusive hadron production in deep inelastic scattering in at order 1/Q. There are two competing contributions: the leading order transverse momentum dependent parton distribution $h_1^{\perp }(x,k_{\perp })$ convoluted with chiral-odd fragmentation function $\hat{e}(z)$, and the chiral-odd distribution function $e(x)$ convoluted with Collins fragmentation function $H_1^{\perp }(z,k_{\perp }^{\prime })$. We estimate this asymmetry and compare with the experimental measurements from CLAS and HERMES collaborations.

Comments: 8 pages, 2 PS figures