Polarized hadron pair production from electron-positron annihilation

Abstract

We study the production of two almost back-to-back hadrons from the annihilation of an electron and a positron, allowing for the polarization of all particles involved. In particular, we conduct a general (model-independent) structure function decomposition of the cross section for the case e+e-→γ*→hahbX. Moreover, using the parton model we calculate the relevant structure functions in terms of twist-2 transverse momentum dependent (TMD) fragmentation functions (FFs). We also give results for the situation e+e-→Z*→hahbX (including γ-Z interference) within this model. This is the first time a complete framework has been presented for the examination of TMD FFs within e+e-→hahbX. We also specify certain parts of our analysis that hold for the triple-polarized semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering process and for di-hadron fragmentation. Furthermore, we give an explicit prescription of how our work can be translated to the Drell-Yan reaction, which provides, for the first time, full results for double-polarized Drell-Yan that include electroweak effects. We further discuss the relevance of our e+e-→hahbX results for future experiments at e+e- machines. © 2014 American Physical Society.