We report a new high-precision measurement of the mid-rapidity inclusive jet longitudinal double-spin asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, in polarized $pp$ collisions at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. The STAR data place stringent constraints on polarized parton distribution functions extracted at next-to-leading order from global analyses of inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS), semi-inclusive DIS, and RHIC $pp$ data. The measured asymmetries provide evidence for positive gluon polarization in the Bjorken-$x$ region $x>0.05$.
Inclusive jet $A_{LL}$ vs. parton jet $p_T$ for |eta|<0.5.
Inclusive jet $A_{LL}$ vs. parton jet $p_T$ for 0.5<|eta|<1.0.
$A_{LL}$ model predictions for |eta|<0.5.
We report high-precision measurements of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, for midrapidity inclusive jet and dijet production in polarized $pp$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=200\,\mathrm{GeV}$. The new inclusive jet data are sensitive to the gluon helicity distribution, $\Delta g(x,Q^2)$, for gluon momentum fractions in the range from $x \simeq 0.05$ to $x \simeq 0.5$, while the new dijet data provide further constraints on the $x$ dependence of $\Delta g(x,Q^2)$. The results are in good agreement with previous measurements at $\sqrt{s}=200\,\mathrm{GeV}$ and with recent theoretical evaluations of prior world data. Our new results have better precision and thus strengthen the evidence that $\Delta g(x,Q^2)$ is positive for $x > 0.05$.
Parton inclusive-jet $p_T$ and $A_{LL}$ values with associated uncertainties for jet-$\eta$ region $0.5<|\eta|<1$.
Parton inclusive-jet $p_T$ and $A_{LL}$ values with associated uncertainties for jet-$\eta$ region $|\eta|<0.5$.
Parton dijet invariant mass $M_{inv}$ and $A_{LL}$ values with associated uncertainties for the $\textrm{sign}(\eta_1) = \textrm{sign}(\eta_2)$ topology.