Understanding the J/psi Production Mechanism at PHENIX
Abstract
The large mass of the charm quark, along with the abundance of J/psi mesons observed from proton-proton collisions at PHENIX, allow for new measurements which are sensitive to basic properties of QCD. Two measurements are presented in this document: a transverse single-spin asymmetry (SSA) of J/psi production and the angular distribution for decay leptons in various reference frames. The decay distribution is directly sensitive to the J/psi production mechanism, while the transverse SSA is also sensitive to the distribution of gluons in a transversely polarized proton. Taken together, the two measurements provide a wealth of information about the formation of a J/psi meson.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1107.1293,
title = {Understanding the J/psi Production Mechanism at PHENIX},
author = {Todd Kempel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1107.1293},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
139 pages, 66 figures, Ph.D. thesis submitted to Iowa State University Sep 2010, DAI-B 72/03