Abstract
The spin alignment of vector meson produced in high energy reactions is determined by the spin-dependent fragmentation function $D_{1LL} (z,\mu_f)$ that is shown to be independent of the polarization of the fragmenting quark. In this paper, we extract the spin-dependent fragmentation function $D_{1LL} (z,\mu_f)$ from data on the spin alignment of $K^{*0}$ in $e^+e^-$ annihilation at LEP in two different scenarios and apply them to make predictions in $pp$ collisions. We make detailed analysis of contributions from different sub-processes and show that the spin alignment should be quite significant also in high energy $pp$ collisions.
Highlights
The spin dependence of fragmentation functions (FFs) is one of the important aspects in high energy spin physics and plays an important role in studying the properties of QCD in general and the hadronization mechanism in particular
The spin alignment of vector mesons has been measured in eþe− annihilations and other high energy reactions [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
A systematic study of such a decomposition has been accomplished [63,64], and the results show in particular that the spin alignment is determined solely by the SLL-dependent FF D1LL and D1LL is independent of the spin of the fragmenting quark
Summary
The spin dependence of fragmentation functions (FFs) is one of the important aspects in high energy spin physics and plays an important role in studying the properties of QCD in general and the hadronization mechanism in particular. An experimental check of the quark polarization independence of the vector meson spin alignment should be a very basic test of the fragmentation picture, and deep studies in this direction should lead to new insights on the hadronization mechanism. In this connection, it might be interesting to mention that spin effects have attracted much attention recently in heavy ion collisions. A very special state of hadronic matter—the quark gluon plasma (QGP)—is formed, and the hadronization mechanism is different Both hyperon polarization and vector meson spin alignment have been studied at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) as well as at the LHC in this connection.
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