Measurement of longitudinal spin asymmetries for weak boson production in polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC

The STAR collaboration Adamczyk, L. ; Adkins, J.K. ; Agakishiev, G. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.Lett. 113 (2014) 072301, 2014.
Inspire Record 1292792 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.73441

We report measurements of single- and double- spin asymmetries for $W^{\pm}$ and $Z/\gamma^*$ boson production in longitudinally polarized $p+p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 510$ GeV by the STAR experiment at RHIC. The asymmetries for $W^{\pm}$ were measured as a function of the decay lepton pseudorapidity, which provides a theoretically clean probe of the proton's polarized quark distributions at the scale of the $W$ mass. The results are compared to theoretical predictions, constrained by recent polarized deep inelastic scattering measurements, and show a preference for a sizable, positive up antiquark polarization in the range $0.05<x<0.2$.

13 data tables

$E_T^e$ distribution of $W^{\pm}$ candidate events, background contributions, and sum of backgrounds and W -> ev MC signal. This plot is for Electron |eta|<0.5.

$E_T^e$ distribution of $W^{\pm}$ candidate events, background contributions, and sum of backgrounds and W -> ev MC signal. This plot is for Electron 0.5<|eta|<1.1.

$E_T^e$ distribution of $W^{\pm}$ candidate events, background contributions, and sum of backgrounds and W -> ev MC signal. This plot is for Positron |eta|<0.5.

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Measurement of the transverse single-spin asymmetry in $p^\uparrow+p \to W^{\pm}/Z^0$ at RHIC

The STAR collaboration Adamczyk, L. ; Adkins, J.K. ; Agakishiev, G. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.Lett. 116 (2016) 132301, 2016.
Inspire Record 1405433 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.73263

We present the measurement of the transverse single-spin asymmetry of weak boson production in transversely polarized proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 500~\text{GeV}$ by the STAR experiment at RHIC. The measured observable is sensitive to the Sivers function, one of the transverse momentum dependent parton distribution functions, which is predicted to have the opposite sign in proton-proton collisions from that observed in deep inelastic lepton-proton scattering. These data provide the first experimental investigation of the non-universality of the Sivers function, fundamental to our understanding of QCD.

6 data tables

$P_{T}$ Recoil distribution of events simulated with PYTHIA 6.4 and reconstructed before and after the boson's PT correction has been applied.

Estimated background contributions for the $W^+ -> ev$ data yields.

Estimated background contributions for the $W^- -> ev$ data yields.

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