English

Virtual photon fragmentation functions

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-11-07 v2 Nuclear Theory

Abstract

We introduce operator definitions for virtual photon fragmentation functions, which are needed for reliable calculations of Drell-Yan transverse momentum (QTQ_T) distributions when QTQ_T is much larger than the invariant mass QQ. We derive the evolution equations for these fragmentation functions. We calculate the leading order evolution kernels for partons to fragment into a unpolarized as well as a polarized virtual photon. We find that fragmentation functions to a longitudinally polarized virtual photon are most important at small zz, and the fragmentation functions to a transversely polarized virtual photon dominate the large zz region. We discuss the implications of this finding to the J/ψ\psi mesons' polarization at large transverse momentum.

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0101004,
  title  = {Virtual photon fragmentation functions},
  author = {Jianwei Qiu and Xiaofei Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0101004},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Latex, 19 pages including 6 figures. An error in the first version has been corrected, and references updated