Longitudinal spin physics with the PHENIX detector at RHIC

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series Vol. 230; no. 1; p. 012040
• Main Author: Kawall, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.06.2010
• Subjects: Bosons; Collisions; Distribution functions; Flavor (particle physics); Gluons; Heavy ions; Leptons; Physics; Protons; Quarks; Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
• ISSN: 1742-6596; 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/230/1/012040

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has demonstrated the unique ability to collide beams of polarized protons at center of mass energies from GeV to 500 GeV. The spin-dependent gluon distribution function of the proton, Δg(x), can be determined from such collisions, through processes such as p + p → π + X, p + p → γ + X, p + p → η + X, and others. The results of analyses for these kinds of processes in PHENIX will be presented, some of which provide strong constraints on the contribution of gluon spin to the spin of the proton. Flavor-separated spin-dependent quark and antiquark distribution functions can also be extracted in polarized p+p collisions, from parity-violation in the production of W bosons, which we observe indirectly from their decay into leptons. Our progress in determining the W-production yield from our selection of p + p → e + X events will be presented.