Eur. Phys. J. C (2009) 59: 659-673
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-008-0806-0

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Transversity and T-odd PDFs from Drell–Yan processes with pp, pD and DD collisions

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980, Dubna, Russia

^* e-mail: shev@mail.cern.ch

Received: 29 August 2008
Revised: 1 November 2008
Published online: 20 December 2008

Abstract

We estimate the single-spin asymmetries (SSA) which provide the access to transversity as well as to Boer–Mulders and Sivers PDFs via investigation of the single-polarized Drell–Yan (DY) processes with pp, pD and DD collisions available to RHIC, NICA, COMPASS, and J-PARC. The feasibility of these SSA is studied with the new generator of polarized DY events. The estimations performed demonstrate that there exist kinematical regions where SSA are presumably measurable. Most useful for PDFs extraction are the limiting kinematical ranges, where one can neglect the sea PDFs contributions which occur at large values of the Bjorken variable x. It is of interest that, contrary to the Sivers PDF, the transversity PDF is presumably accessible only in a particular kinematical region. Contrary to the option with the symmetric collider mode (RHIC, NICA), this is of importance for the COMPASS experiment and the future J-PARC facility, where the fixed-target mode is available.