Cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetry of muons from open heavy-flavor decays in polarized p plus p collisions at root s=200 GeV

Abstract

The cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetries of mu(-) and mu(+) from open heavy-flavor decays in polarized p + p collisions at pffisffiffi root s = 200 GeV were measured by the PHENIX experiment during 2012 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Because heavy-flavor production is dominated by gluon-gluon interactions at ffiffiffi root s = 200 GeV, these measurements offer a unique opportunity to obtain information on the trigluon correlation functions. The measurements are performed at forward and backward rapidity (1.4 < vertical bar y vertical bar < 2.0) over the transverse momentum range of 1.25 < p(T) < 7 GeV/c for the cross section and 1.25 < p(T) < 5 GeV/c for the asymmetry measurements. The obtained cross section is compared to a fixed-order-plus-next-to-leading-log perturbative-quantum-chromodynamics calculation. The asymmetry results are consistent with zero within uncertainties, and a model calculation based on twist-3 three-gluon correlations agrees with the data.