Longitudinal Double-Spin Asymmetries for $π^{0}$s in the Forward Direction for 510 GeV Polarized $pp$ Collisions
hep-ex
/ Authors
J. Adam, L. Adamczyk, J. R. Adams, J. K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, N. N. Ajitanand, I. Alekseev, D. M. Anderson
and 339 more authors
R. Aoyama, A. Aparin, D. Arkhipkin, E. C. Aschenauer, M. U. Ashraf, F. Atetalla, A. Attri, G. S. Averichev, X. Bai, V. Bairathi, K. Barish, A. J. Bassill, A. Behera, R. Bellwied, A. Bhasin, A. K. Bhati, J. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, L. C. Bland, I. G. Bordyuzhin, J. D. Brandenburg, A. V. Brandin, D. Brown, J. Bryslawskyj
/ Abstract
The STAR Collaboration reports measurements of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, for neutral pions produced at forward directions in polarized proton-proton collisions, at a center-of-mass energy of $510$ GeV. Results are given for transverse momenta in the range $2<p_{T}<10$ GeV/$c$ within two regions of pseudorapidity that span $2.65<η<3.9$. These results are sensitive to the polarized gluon parton distribution function, $Δg(x)$, down to the region of Bjorken $x \sim 10^{-3}$. The asymmetries observed are less than $\pm 5 \cdot 10^{-3}$ in magnitude, and will help constrain the contribution to the spin of the proton from polarized gluons at low $x$, when combined with other measurements as part of a global analysis.