We report a new high-precision measurement of the mid-rapidity inclusive jet longitudinal double-spin asymmetry, $A_{LL}$, in polarized $pp$ collisions at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. The STAR data place stringent constraints on polarized parton distribution functions extracted at next-to-leading order from global analyses of inclusive deep inelastic scattering (DIS), semi-inclusive DIS, and RHIC $pp$ data. The measured asymmetries provide evidence for positive gluon polarization in the Bjorken-$x$ region $x>0.05$.
Inclusive jet $A_{LL}$ vs. parton jet $p_T$ for |eta|<0.5.
Inclusive jet $A_{LL}$ vs. parton jet $p_T$ for 0.5<|eta|<1.0.
$A_{LL}$ model predictions for |eta|<0.5.
We report the first measurement of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry $A_{LL}$ for mid-rapidity di-jet production in polarized $pp$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV. The di-jet cross section was measured and is shown to be consistent with next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD predictions. $A_{LL}$ results are presented for two distinct topologies, defined by the jet pseudorapidities, and are compared to predictions from several recent NLO global analyses. The measured asymmetries, the first such correlation measurements, support those analyses that find positive gluon polarization at the level of roughly 0.2 over the region of Bjorken-$x > 0.05$.
Di-jet A_LL asymmetry vs parton-level invariant mass for the same-sign di-jet topology. The systematic uncertainty on the mass includes contributions from jet energy scale, the correction to parton-level, and the difference between NLO and PYTHIA cross sections. The systematic uncertainty on the asymmetry includes contributions from trigger and reconstruction bias and residual transverse beam polarization components. A 6.5% uncertainty common to all points due to uncertainty on the measured beam polarizations is also present, but not included in the uncertainties quoted below.
Theoretical predictions for the di-jet A_LL asymmetry for the same-sign topology using the DSSV14 and NNPDFpol1.1 polarized PDF sets. The DSSV14 prediction is presented without uncertainty while the systematic uncertainty on the NNPDFpol1.1 prediction contains contributions from factorization and renormalization scale uncertainties and PDF uncertainties.
Di-jet A_LL asymmetry vs parton-level invariant mass for the opposite-sign di-jet topology. The systematic uncertainty on the mass includes contributions from jet energy scale, the correction to parton-level, and the difference between NLO and PYTHIA cross sections. The systematic uncertainty on the asymmetry includes contributions from trigger and reconstruction bias and residual transverse beam polarization components. A 6.5% uncertainty common to all points due to uncertainty on the measured beam polarizations is also present, but not included in the uncertainties quoted below.