Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.

Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.

(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)

Understanding hard interaction in QCD and the search for the gluon spin contribution to the spin of the proton

Amaresh Datta, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Abstract

In the following discourse unpolarized cross sections and double helicity asymmetries of single inclusive positive and negative charged hadrons at mid-rapidity from p + p collisions at [special characters omitted] = 62.4 GeV are presented. Measurements for the transverse momentum range 1.0 < pT < 4.5 GeV/c are done with PHENIX detector at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and are consistent with calculations based on perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant, α s. Resummed pQCD calculations including terms with next-to-leading log (NLL) accuracy, yielding reduced theoretical uncertainties, also agree with the data. The double helicity asymmetry, sensitive at leading order to the gluon polarization in a momentum fraction range of 0.05 [special characters omitted] xgluon [special characters omitted] 0.2, is consistent with recent global parameterizations disfavoring large gluon polarization.

Subject Area

Particle physics

Recommended Citation

Datta, Amaresh, "Understanding hard interaction in QCD and the search for the gluon spin contribution to the spin of the proton" (2012). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI3518222.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3518222

Share

COinS