Gluon Double-Spin Asymmetry in the Longitudinally Polarized $p+p$ Collisions

Abstract

We derive the first-ever small-$x$ expression for the inclusive gluon production cross section in the central rapidity region of the longitudinally polarized proton-proton collisions. The cross section depends on the polarizations of both protons, therefore comprising the numerator of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry $A_{LL}$ for the produced gluons. The cross section is calculated in the shock wave formalism and is expressed in terms of the polarized dipole scattering amplitudes on the projectile and target protons. We show that the small-$x$ evolution corrections are included into our cross section expression if one evolves these polarized dipole amplitudes using the double-logarithmic helicity evolution derived in \cite{Kovchegov:2015pbl, Kovchegov:2016zex, Kovchegov:2018znm, Cougoulic:2022gbk}. Our calculation is performed for the gluon sector only, with the quark contribution left for future work. When that work is complete, the resulting formula will be applicable to longitudinally polarized proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions, as well as to polarized semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS) on a proton or a nucleus. Our results should allow one to extend the small-$x$ helicity phenomenology analysis of \cite{Adamiak:2023yhz} to the jet/hadron production data reported for the longitudinally polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC and to polarized SIDIS measurements at central rapidities to be performed at the EIC.