Observation of Beam Spin Asymmetries in the Process Ep→e′π+π−X with CLAS12.

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.152501.

Abstract

The observation of beam spin asymmetries in two-pion production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering off an unpolarized proton target is reported. The data presented here were taken in the fall of 2018 with the CLAS12 spectrometer using a 10.6 GeV longitudinally spin-polarized electron beam delivered by CEBAF at JLab. The measured asymmetries provide the first opportunity to extract the parton distribution function e (x), which provides information about the interaction between gluons and quarks, in a collinear framework that offers cleaner access than previous measurements. The asymmetries also constitute the first ever signal sensitive to the helicity-dependent two-pion fragmentation function G⊥1 . A clear sign change is observed around the ρ mass that appears in model calculations and is indicative of the dependence of the produced pions on the helicity of the fragmenting quark.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-12-2021

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2021, APS Physics.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.152501.

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