Abstract
We report the first measurement of transverse single-spin asymmetries in production from transversely polarized collisions at with data taken by the PHENIX experiment in 2006 and 2008. The measurement was performed over the rapidity ranges and for transverse momenta up to . production at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is dominated by processes involving initial-state gluons, and transverse single-spin asymmetries of the can provide access to gluon dynamics within the nucleon. Such asymmetries may also shed light on the long-standing question in QCD of the production mechanism. Asymmetries were obtained as a function of transverse momentum and Feynman-, with a value of in the forward region. This result suggests possible nonzero trigluon correlation functions in transversely polarized protons and, if well defined in this reaction, a nonzero gluon Sivers distribution function.
- Received 27 September 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.112008
© 2010 The American Physical Society