Quark fragmentation in the $θ$-vacuum

Abstract

The vacuum of Quantum Chromodynamics is a superposition of degenerate states with different topological numbers that are connected by tunneling (the $θ$-vacuum). The tunneling events are due to topologically non-trivial configurations of gauge fields (e.g. the instantons) that induce local $\p$-odd domains in Minkowski space-time. We study the quark fragmentation in this topologically non-trivial QCD background. We find that even though QCD globally conserves $\p$ and $\cp$ symmetries, two new kinds of $\p$-odd fragmentation functions emerge. They generate interesting dihadron correlations: one is the azimuthal angle correlation $\sim \cos(ϕ_1 + ϕ_2)$ usually referred to as the Collins effect, and the other is the $\p$-odd correlation $\sim \sin(ϕ_1 + ϕ_2)$ that vanishes in the cross section summed over many events, but survives on the event-by-event basis. Using the chiral quark model we estimate the magnitude of these new fragmentation functions. We study their experimental manifestations in dihadron production in $e^+e^-$ collisions, and comment on the applicability of our approach in deep-inelastic scattering, proton-proton and heavy ion collisions.