Beam Spin Asymmetries of Charged and Neutral Pion Productions in Semi-inclusive DIS

Abstract

We present a study on the beam single spin asymmetries $A_{LU}^{\sinϕ_h}$ of $π^+$, $π^-$ and $π^0$ production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering process, by considering Collins effect and the $g^\perp D_1$ term simultaneously. We calculate the twist-3 distributions $e(x, \bm k_T^2)$ and $g^\perp(x,\bm k_T^2)$ for the valence quarks inside the proton in a spectator model. We consider two different options for the form of diquark propagator, as well as two different choices for the model parameters in the calculation. Using the model results, we estimate the beam spin asymmetries $A_{LU}^{\sinϕ_h}$ for the charged and neutral pions and compare the results with the measurement from the HERMES Collaboration. We also make predictions on the asymmetries at CLAS with a $5.5 \,\textrm{GeV}$ beam using the same model results. It is found that different choices for the diquark propagator will not only lead to different expressions for the distribution functions, but also result in different sizes of the asymmetries. Our study also shows that, although the spectator model calculation can describe the asymmetries for certain pion production in some kinematic regions, it seems difficult to explain the asymmetries of pion production for all three pions in a consistent way from the current versions.