Measurement of the Transverse Single-Spin Asymmetry in p^{↑}+p→W^{±}/Z^{0} at RHIC

Extraction of the Sivers Function from SIDIS, Drell-Yan, and W^{±}/Z Data at Next-to-Next-to-Next-to Leading Order

We perform the global analysis of polarized semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS), pion-induced polarized Drell-Yan (DY) process, and W^{±}/Z boson production data and extract the Sivers function for u, d, s and for sea quarks. We use the framework of transverse momentum dependent factorization at next-to-next-to-next-to leading order (N^{3}LO) accuracy. The Qiu-Sterman function is determined in a model independent way from the extracted Sivers function. We also evaluate the significance of the predicted sign change of the Sivers function in DY process with respect to SIDIS.

Energetic spin-polarized proton beams from two-stage coherent acceleration in laser-driven plasma

We propose a scheme to overcome the great challenge of polarization loss in spin-polarized ion acceleration. When a petawatt laser pulse penetrates through a compound plasma target consisting of a double layer slab and prepolarized hydrogen halide gas, a strong forward moving quasistatic longitudinal electric field is constructed by the self-generated laser-driven plasma. This field with a varying drift velocity efficiently boosts the prepolarized protons via a two-stage coherent acceleration process. Its merit is not only achieving a highly energetic beam but also eliminating the undesired polarization loss of the accelerated protons. We study the proton dynamics via Hamiltonian analyses, specifically deriving the threshold of triggering the two-stage coherent acceleration. To confirm the theoretical predictions, we perform three-dimensional PIC simulations, where unprecedented proton beams with energy approximating half GeV and polarization ratio ∼ 94% are obtained.

Spin-polarized proton beam generation from gas-jet targets by intense laser pulses

A method of generating spin-polarized proton beams from a gas jet by using a multipetawatt laser is put forward. With currently available techniques of producing prepolarized monatomic gases from photodissociated hydrogen halide molecules and petawatt lasers, proton beams with energy ≳50 MeV and ≈80% polarization are proved to be obtained. Two-stage acceleration and spin dynamics of protons are investigated theoretically and by means of fully self-consistent three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Our results predict the dependence of the beam polarization on the intensity of the driving laser pulse. Generation of bright energetic polarized proton beams would open a domain of polarization studies with laser driven accelerators and have potential application to enable effective detection in explorations of quantum chromodynamics.

Recent results on cold-QCD from RHIC

Polarized proton-proton collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provide unique opportunities to study the spin structure of the nucleon. We will highlight recent results on the nucleon spin structure from the STAR and PHENIX experiments at RHIC: (1) A sizable gluon polarization in the proton is measured with longitudinal double spin asymmetries of jet and hadron production; (2) Longitudinal single spin asymmetries in W boson production improve constraints on the sea quark polarization. The new spin asymmetry results for W boson confirmed the SU(2) flavor asymmetry of the light sea quark polarization in the proton; (3) Transverse spin effects in hadronic systems offer new implications on parton distribution functions in the collinear and transverse momentum dependent frameworks. We will also discuss near term plans for the STAR forward detector upgrade and prospects for proton-proton and protonion collisions in the years beyond 2021 at STAR.

The sea of quarks and antiquarks in the nucleon

The quark and gluon structure of the proton has been under intense experimental and theoretical investigation for five decades. Even for the distributions of the well-studied valence quarks, challenges such as the value of the down quark to up quark ratio at high fractional momenta remain. Much of the sea of quark-antiquark pairs emerges from the splitting of gluons and is well described by perturbative evolution in quantum chromodynamics. However, experiments confirm that there is a non-perturbative component to the sea that is not well understood and hitherto has been difficult to calculate with ab initio non-perturbative methods. This non-perturbative structure shows up, perhaps most directly, in the flavor dependence of the sea antiquark distributions. While some of the general trends can be reproduced by models, there are features of the data that do not seem to be well described. This article discusses the experimental situation, the status of calculations and models, and the directions where these studies will progress in the near future.

First Measurement of Transverse-Spin-Dependent Azimuthal Asymmetries in the Drell-Yan Process

The first measurement of transverse-spin-dependent azimuthal asymmetries in the pion-induced Drell-Yan (DY) process is reported. We use the CERN SPS 190  GeV/c π^{-} beam and a transversely polarized ammonia target. Three azimuthal asymmetries giving access to different transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) parton distribution functions (PDFs) are extracted using dimuon events with invariant mass between 4.3  GeV/c^{2} and 8.5  GeV/c^{2}. Within the experimental uncertainties, the observed sign of the Sivers asymmetry is found to be consistent with the fundamental prediction of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) that the Sivers TMD PDFs extracted from DY have a sign opposite to the one extracted from semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (SIDIS) data. We present two other asymmetries originating from the pion Boer-Mulders TMD PDFs convoluted with either the nucleon transversity or pretzelosity TMD PDFs. A recent COMPASS SIDIS measurement was obtained at a hard scale comparable to that of these DY results. This opens the way for possible tests of fundamental QCD universality predictions.