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arXiv · 2507.14637

Determination of Fragmentation Functions from Charge Asymmetries in Hadron Production

Abstract

We propose a novel method for extracting non-singlet (NS) fragmentation functions (FFs) of light charged hadrons from charge asymmetries measured in hadron fragmentation, using data from both single-inclusive electron-positron annihilation and semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering processes. We determine the NS FFs for pions and kaons at next-to-next-to-leading order in Quantum Chromodynamics, including a comprehensive uncertainty analysis. The extracted FFs reveal a scaling index of about 0.7 at large momentum fractions and low energy scales, a strangeness suppression factor of about 0.5, and universality in fragmentation of light mesons. Our findings provide a valuable benchmark for testing non-perturbative QCD models and Monte Carlo event generators, and serve as crucial input for future electron-ion colliders.

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Jun Gao, ChongYang Liu, Bin Zhou. 2025-07-19. Determination of Fragmentation Functions from Charge Asymmetries in Hadron Production. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14637

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