Transverse momentum dependence of J/psi polarization at midrapidity in p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV

The PHENIX collaboration Adare, A. ; Afanasiev, S. ; Aidala, C. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.D 82 (2010) 012001, 2010.
Inspire Record 839540 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.141077

We report the measurement of the transverse momentum dependence of inclusive J/psi polarization in p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV performed by the PHENIX Experiment at RHIC. The polarization is studied in the helicity, Gottfried-Jackson, and Collins-Soper frames for p_T < 5 GeV/c and |y| < 0.35. The J/psi polarization in the helicity and Gottfried-Jackson frames is consistent with zero for all transverse momenta, with a slight (1.8 sigma) trend towards longitudinal polarization for transverse momenta above 2 GeV/c. No conclusion is allowed due to the limited acceptance in the Collins-Soper frame and the uncertainties of the current data. The results are compared to observations for other collision systems and center of mass energies and to different quarkonia production models.

3 data tables

$J/\psi$ yield times dielectron branching ratio ($B$) after detector acceptance and efficiency corrections for the real data with $A$ = 28.7 $\pm$ 1.0 nb/GeV/$c$, $b$ = 3.41 $\pm$ 0.21 GeV/$c$, and $n$ = 4.6 $\pm$ 0.4.

$J/\psi$ polarization parameter ($\lambda_{J/\psi}$) versus transverse momentum ($p_T$).

$J/\psi$ polarization parameter ($\lambda_{J/\psi}$) versus transverse momentum ($p_T$).