First measurement of transverse-spin-dependent azimuthal asymmetries in the Drell-Yan process

الأصل · EN

The COMPASS experiment at CERN, as part of its programme addresses the exploration of the transverse spin structure of the nucleon by measuring spin (in)dependent azimuthal asymmetries in semi-inclusive DIS and, recently, also in Drell-Yan processes. Between 2002 and 2010 COMPASS performed a series of SIDIS measurements, using a longitudinally polarized muon beam impinging on transversely polarized ⁶LiD or NH₃ targets. Drell-Yan measurements with a π- beam interacting with a transversely polarized NH₃ target started with the 2015 run and will be continued in 2018. In this Letter the first measurement of transverse-spin-dependent azimuthal asymmetries in the pion-induced Drell-Yan process is reported. Measured asymmetries giving access to different transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) parton distribution functions (PDFs) are extracted using dimuon events with invariant mass between 4.3 and 8.5. A recent COMPASS SIDIS measurement was obtained at a hard scale comparable to that of these DY results. This provides a unique possibility to test predicted in QCD sign change of the Sivers TMD PDF and other (pseudo-)universal features of transvers momentum dependent parton distribution functions.