Single and Double Spin Asymmetries for Deeply Virtual Exclusive π<sup>0</sup> Production on Longitudinally Polarized Proton Target with CLAS

Abstract

Deeply virtual exclusive processes probe the internal structure of nucleons through measurements of structure functions and their ratios, which are sensitive to the chiral-even generalized parton distributions (GPDs) and the chiral-odd transversity GPDs. The GPDs encode correlations of parton distributions in longitudinal momentum space and transverse impact parameter space and are accessible through the measurements of the xB and t dependence of meson production. The wide kinematic coverage of CLAS detector allowed measurements of exclusive π0 electroproduction in full azimuthal range. The target and double spin asymmetries for the deeply virtual exclusive π0 electroproduction were measured for the first time in the DIS region. The experiment was carried out at Hall B, Jefferson Lab using the longitudinally polarized electron beam with energy of up to 6 GeV and a dynamically polarized NH3 target with spins of free protons aligned along the beam axis. All four final-state particles from exclusive channel, electron, proton and two photons from π0 decay, were identified. The asymmetries were fitted according to their angular modulations in the hadronic center-of-mass system, and their moments were extracted. The data comparison with two handbag-based calculations involving the contribution from both chiral-even and chiral-odd GPDs was performed in wide kinematic range. The applicability of a formalism based on generalized parton distributions within the framework of modified perturbative approach is discussed.