Title

Nuclear Dependence of the Transverse-Single-Spin Asymmetry for Forward Neutron Production in Polarized p + A Collisions at √ s N N = 200     GeV

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-8-2018

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.022001

Abstract

During 2015, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provided collisions of transversely polarized protons with Au and Al nuclei for the first time, enabling the exploration of transverse-single-spin asymmetries with heavy nuclei. Large single-spin asymmetries in very forward neutron production have been previously observed in transversely polarized p+p collisions at RHIC, and the existing theoretical framework that was successful in describing the single-spin asymmetry in p+p collisions predicts only a moderate atomic-mass-number (A) dependence. In contrast, the asymmetries observed at RHIC in p+A collisions showed a surprisingly strong A dependence in inclusive forward neutron production. The observed asymmetry in p+Al collisions is much smaller, while the asymmetry in p+Au collisions is a factor of 3 larger in absolute value and of opposite sign. The interplay of different neutron production mechanisms is discussed as a possible explanation of the observed A dependence.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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