Cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetry of muons from open heavy-flavor decays in polarized $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV

Abstract

The cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetries of ${\mu }^{-}$ and ${\mu }^{+}$ from open heavy-flavor decays in polarized $p$+$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV were measured by the PHENIX experiment during 2012 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Because heavy-flavor production is dominated by gluon-gluon interactions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV, these measurements offer a unique opportunity to obtain information on the trigluon correlation functions. The measurements are performed at forward and backward rapidity ($1.4<|y|<2.0$) over the transverse momentum range of $1.25<p_T<7$ GeV/$c$ for the cross section and $1.25<p_T<5$ GeV/$c$ for the asymmetry measurements. The obtained cross section is compared to a fixed-order-plus-next-to-leading-log perturbative-quantum-chromodynamics calculation. The asymmetry results are consistent with zero within uncertainties, and a model calculation based on twist-3 three-gluon correlations agrees with the data.

arXiv comment437 authors, 15 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables, 2015 data. v2 is version accepted for publication by Phys. Rev. D. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.html

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• Measurements of $\mu \mu$ pairs from open heavy flavor and Drell-Yan in $p+p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV
• Conceptual design of the Spin Physics Detector
• Single-spin asymmetry of $J/\psi$ production in $p$$+$$p$, $p$$+$Al, and $p$$+$Au collisions with transversely polarized proton beams at $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}=200$ GeV
• Prospects for quarkonium studies at the high-luminosity LHC
• Nuclear dependence of the transverse single-spin asymmetry in the production of charged hadrons at forward rapidity in polarized $p+p$, $p+$Al, and $p+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{}_{NN}}}=200$ GeV
• Probing gluon spin-momentum correlations in transversely polarized protons through midrapidity isolated direct photons in $p^{\uparrow }+p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV
• Transverse single-spin asymmetries of midrapidity ${\pi }^0$ and $\eta$ mesons in polarized $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV
• A new description of transverse momentum spectra of identified particles produced in proton-proton collisions at high energies
• Transverse single-spin asymmetry of charged hadrons at forward and backward rapidity in polarized $p$+$p$, $p$+Al, and $p$+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV}
• Probing gluon TMDs with reconstructed and tagged heavy flavor hadron pairs at EIC
• Transverse Single-Spin Asymmetries of Midrapidity Direct Photons, Neutral Pions, and Eta Mesons in 200 GeV Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions at PHENIX