Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to single-inclusive hadron production in transversely polarizedppandp¯pcollisions

Abstract

We present a calculation of the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the partonic cross sections contributing to single-inclusive high-${p}_{T}$ hadron production in collisions of transversely polarized hadrons. We use a recently developed projection technique for treating the phase-space integrals in the presence of the $\mathrm{cos}(2\ensuremath{\Phi})$ azimuthal-angular dependence associated with transverse polarization. Our phenomenological results show that the double-spin asymmetry ${A}_{\mathrm{TT}}^{\ensuremath{\pi}}$ for neutral-pion production is expected to be very small for polarized $pp$ scattering at RHIC and could be much larger for the proposed experiments with an asymmetric $\overline{p}p$ collider at the GSI.