$W$ Boson Production in Polarized p+p Collisions at RHIC

The production of $W^{\pm}$ bosons in longitudinally polarized $\vec{p}+\vec{p}$ collisions at RHIC provides a new means of studying the spin-flavor asymmetries of the proton sea quark distributions. Details of the $W^{\pm}$ event selection in the $e^{\pm}$ decay channel at mid-rapidity are presented, along with preliminary results for the production cross section and parity-violating single-spin asymmetry, $A_L$, from the STAR Collaboration's 2009 data at $\sqrt{s}=500$ GeV.