Measurement of Transverse Spin Dependent Azimuthal Correlations of Charged Pion(s) in $p^{\uparrow} p$ Collisions at $\sqrt s = 200$ GeV at STAR

Abstract

At the leading twist, the transversity distribution function, $h^{q}_{1}(x)$, where $x$ is the longitudinal momentum fraction of the proton carried by quark $q$, encodes the transverse spin structure of the nucleon. Extraction of it is difficult because of its chiral-odd nature. In transversely polarized proton-proton collisions ($p^\uparrow p$), $h_{1}^{q}(x)$ can be coupled with another chiral-odd partner, a spin-dependent fragmentation function (FF). The resulting asymmetries in hadron(s) azimuthal correlations directly probe $h_{1}^{q}(x)$. We report the measurement of correlation asymmetries for charged pion(s) in $p^\uparrow p$, through the Collins and the Interference FF channel.