Beam spin asymmetry in semi-inclusive electroproduction of a hadron pair
hep-ex
/ Authors
M. Mirazita, H. Avakian, A. Courtoy, S. Pisano, S. Adhikari, M. J. Amaryan, G. Angelini, H. Atac, N. A. Baltzell, L. Barion
and 133 more authors
M. Battaglieri, I. Bedlinskiy, Fatiha Benmokhtar, A. Bianconi, A. S. Biselli, F. Bossu', S. Boiarinov, W. J. Briscoe, W. K. Brooks, D. Bulumulla, V. D. Burkert, D. S. Carman, J. C. Carvajal, A. Celentano, P. Chatagnon, T. Chetry, G. Ciullo, B. Clary, P. L. Cole, M. Contalbrigo, V. Crede, A. D'Angelo, N. Dashyan, R. De Vita
/ Abstract
A first measurement of the longitudinal beam spin asymmetry ALU in the semi-inclusive electroproduction of pairs of charged pions is reported. ALU is a higher-twist observable and offers the cleanest access to the nucleon twist-3 parton distribution function e(x). Data have been collected in the Hall-B at Jefferson Lab by impinging a 5.498 GeV electron beam on a liquid-hydrogen target, and reconstructing the scattered electron and the pion pair with the CLAS detector. One-dimensional projections of the sin(phiR) moments of ALU are extracted for the kinematic variables of interest in the valence quark region. The understanding of di-hadron production is essential for the interpretation of observables in single hadron production in semi-inclusive DIS, and pioneering measurements of single spin asymmetries in di-hadron production open a new avenue in studies of QCD dynamics.